The trailers for Super Spa look good, with the music and colourings a fitting touch. I look forward to it, especially with I'm A Celeb Helen cast in it - more comedy gold as she tries to attempt a vajazzle?

Interesting with them trying to improve the 7pm hour. I've always thought that they could provide alternatives to the usual soaps, etc, there.

Easy there Private. Its going to be a long war. The Strictly show is only a padded reveal [of what The Sun has probably revealed weeks ago anyway] and doesnt rate nearly as well as the dancy thing bit, so you may find that your expectations of being in Berlin by Christmas are unfullfilled.

On ITV at 21:00:

Monday 2nd: Doc Martin
Tuesday 3rd: Trauma: Level One
Wednesday 4th: Whitechapel
Thursday 5th: The Guilty
Friday 6th: (England v Moldova)
...
Tuesday 10th: (Ukraine v England)
...
Friday 13th: Brits Icons - Elton John

Last year's Strictly Come Dancing Preview Show averaged 8million between 6.30-7.30pm, peaking with 9.8million. This year's could rate even better due to the better timeslot it has. So Stepping Out realy has no chance at all up against it. BBC are ending its chances of success pretty much as early as they can which is important because they wont want a blatant rip-off format gaining traction.

All it has to do is split the dancing audience and take 1m of them off the BBC and your theory falls apart.

And the following week:

Monday 9th: Doc Martin
Tuesday 10th: Ukraine v England
Wednesday 4th: Whitechapel
Thursday 5th: The Guilty
Friday 6th: Brits Icons: Elton John

A lot stronger than BBC1 it has to be said.

The dance audience are wise. They'll stick with the classy quality established hit show rather than turning to a blatant cheaper knock off version. Mark my words.

We shall mark your words.

No one is suggesting that it'll beat it. All we are saying is, it should manage to achieve a respectable audience.

A shame a light entertainment dancing show has rattled your cage so much though.

Thanks. I updated my post when I realised I was a week behind.

BBC One will look stronger later in September. As noted by others, ITV need to start their series earlier so that they're out of the way by the time IAC starts.

Birds of feather seems to be rating pretty decent on Drama. New episodes on Itv next year. I have a feeling it could be a hit again.

It's got trash TV written all over it. The Bachelor was a one series wonder and proved not worth persevering with, but it was worth trying something different along the same sort of lines to fill that gap, and maybe for some it will prove a guilty pleasure.

I think they have something for everyone as we go through the autumn, just like any channel worth your time. Top drama in the shape of Under the Dome, The Bible, Wentworth Prison and CSI: New York; some quality entertainment in the shape of Celebrity Big Brother; good films like The Expendables, the return of Disney titles to the schedules; live international boxing for sport fans, etc etc.

Some will argue they are undermining their progress by airing something downmarket like Super Spa, but a little bit of everything is fine. All about maximising reach and share.

Have we got year on year analysis on last night's 9pm slot?!

It's not like a 10 minute overlap is going to damage it. Though, people are obviously going to claim a victory for Strictly just because it will have beaten XF in the 10 minutes they overlapped, even though that's completely irrelevant.

It's hard to predict what'll happen here. We'll have to see how X Factor gets off this series before we can predict what'll happen as we go on.

What are we predicting for the launch? An average prediction of 9.5m from me.

Poor all round.- never good any night if no channel beats 3m (or even 4m) at 9pm, never mind a Bank Holiday.


So New Tricks alone almost (but not quite) beating what the terrestrials got combined last night.


Under the Dome clearly didn't need to be in a Big Brother sandwich then - and had they kept them apart and had the final been more sensibly scheduled they'd have probably got at least the same for Under the Dome and almost certainly more for BB itself.

BBC1's September looks very, very weak from what we've seen so far. Only New Tricks will break 5m. Week beginning the 9th ITV should win every 9pm slot.

I do! I do!


How did this work out?

By showing a science documentary instead of New Tricks, BBC One was predictably down almost -5 million.

ITV failed to capitalise, with their film repeat rating even worse than the Prince Harry doc last year (which got 2.16m exc +1).

Out of interest, when is Big Star, Little Star confirmed to start?

EDIT: Just seen, 4th September.

Couldn't disagree more. Officially it'll be the most watched series premiere at 10pm on the channel since at least 2004. There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that Under the Dome would have done as well if it were launched elsewhere at 10pm without the BB sandwich treatment.

Different show but Person of Interest launched out of a CSI finale with no break either and despite a more relevant lead-in that did about 1.5 IIRC, which as I said last week is about the ceiling for a new series in the 10pm hour on Five.

The BB sandwich still works very very well and this tactic will be repeated again and again now.

BBC Two looks a lot better than BBC One that week, with the new dramas.

Ouch, and to think 12 months ago it got 7.62m on Bank Holiday Monday.


There is the justification then for Bourne at 9pm and its 2.09m (11.2%). ITV getting its best Bank Holiday Monday share at 9pm for 3 years

Pointless will do fairly well as you've said but its not something for Stepping Out to worry about. It gets a solid audience but it is hardly a threat to anything, and it skews very old too. It might get a higher total audience than Stepping Out during their head to head but it isn't going to dent Stepping Out at all.

Yup, there is a huge gulf between them so far. BBC1 should probably win Tuesday with New Tricks but other than that ITV will clean up (depending on how Elton does anyway).

Writing off the elderly viewers is a big mistake to make. If Stepping Out is to become a hit, it needs to get a lot of the OAPs watching because dance is very popular with older viewers. So Pointless' popularity among older viewers will pose a threat to Stepping Out.

Stepping Out puts itself across as light entertainment. There's no reason why they can't try and attract a younger audience as well (and there will be many of those waiting around for X Factor ).