Critics have Brooklyn 99 as the best of the bunch of terms of comedies this season. Maybe the buzz will help?

If it's the best of the bunch and doing only a 1.4, it doesn't say much for the rest.

I doubt it'll help. It certainly didn't for Mindy last year or any number of NBC comedies (Parks & Rec, Community etc.). But that critics like it will probably be enough to see it through to January on Fox. Unless they do a major shake-up of the schedule post-World Series.


Critics loving a comedy is usually a pretty good sign that nobody else will watch it though. Modern Family is really the only critically adored comedy of recent times that grabbed an audience from the off. It'll be interesting to see if people avoid Super Fun Night when that debuts tonight along with We Are Men and Dads its been getting a huge kicking from critics (and deservedly so really). I can't say that Brooklyn Nine-Nine is my personal favourite of the new comedies though and not sure its totally deserving of the critical praise its getting. I have a feeling that much of that is brought with its Parks & Rec connection.

w/c 14 October looks like a big week on t'Emmerdale. Siege in Woolpack.

David Tennant cast in the US remake of Broadchurch. Don't know if that means he can't return for the second series over here.

6.8m is poor for what effectively is the BBC's Downton - wasn't it getting 9m or so a couple of years ago?

Same story for Gypsy Christening really - C4 really screwed that up by publicly axing Gypsy Weddings and then continuing to produce new shows and stick them anywhere in the schedules. Had they looks after it better I'm sure the various spin offs would be rating better now.

Bake Off - ridiculous rating but much deserved. Poor and undeserved rating for the football when ITV for once went for the big game rather than the easy money.

And 71% of the audience watching Sarah Millican! Rating of the night.

Isn't Call the Midwife BBC's Downton?

He should be fine to return assuming he's asked back of course. The US version is likely to begin shooting later than series two in the UK. If it films at all. Fox may very well get cold feet on the whole thing given how the 'limited series' model is panning out on US broadcast so far.

No surprise Shield dropped so much, it was a slow turgid pilot. The quicker it haemorrages viewers, the better. Chicago Fire doing well post The Voice, I like it very much.

Very poor for the football, by the way. Itv are spending multi millions of pounds on the rights but its only getting half the ratibgs of a cheap bbc2 bakery program!

I'm surprised The Wrong Mans dropped that much - James Corden is really popular isn't he? I was expecting it to drop to maybe around 2.7 - 2.8m or stay level with last week. I think it's brilliant personally, it's made me chuckle a fair few times. It's still a pretty good rating anyway.

That rating for New Tricks is still good, but it appears its not the ratings monster it once was. It'll be interesting to see how many viewers come back for the next series.

They aren't paying for 6 million viewers though. They're paying for young male viewers who traditionally watch less television than just about any other demographic and as such are more prized with advertisers meaning ITV can charge a higher ad rate for delivering them.

yes we have this discussion every week, it's not a great rating, but it'll do well in the demo yet again.

Typical response, you could say that for most sports coverage. Most of the daytime Wimbledon coverage gets no more than Bargain Hunt for example.

At least now nobody can complain when ITV show Man Utd at all available opportunities for the rest of the competition. They went for the less obvious match yesterday and everyone can't wait to slate the obvious lower rating.

But the demographics that watch the football are probably more favourable to ITV's advertisers which is what matters to them at the end of the day.

Would be interesting actually to see the STV rating for the football and how that compares to usual Champions League group games.

Interesting. So if men are valuable viewers for Itv [or any commercial channels for that matter], why are so many of their programs aimed mainly at women? How comes Itv do very few sci fi dramas, programs about cars/gadgets or show snooker or darts in prime time which would appeal to men?

The second episode of The Wrong Mans was even better. They are digger themselves into a deeper and deeper hole. Very entertaining. New Tricks suffered on Tuesday facing Champions League and England matches.

The value of young male viewers is driven by how hard they are to reach (because as noted they traditionally watch much less television). This presents you with two answers to your question

1 – Attracting young male viewers is simply too hard and too high risk a strategy that rarely pays off and is difficult to sustain (outside of sports)
2 – Attracting young male viewers results in driving down the value of young male viewers. If they're more readily available advertisers won't pay as much for them.

The real answer is a combination of the two.

SHIELD won't be axed but I think this could be it's level now with another 2/3m on timeshift. Brooklyn Nine Nine could be gone very soon. When The Mentalist followed NCIS it was getting 19+ million and a similar demo to NCIS: LA I believe. CBS shouldn't have moved it after one series.

upstairs downtown was the Bbc Downton until it got canned. No doubt they are busy thinking up copies in some back office in Cardiff.

A quiz with too many questions. Jesus I've seen it all now. And to think they used to say Tarrant waffled too much on Millionaire

Shhh George! You're not allowed to say the BBC "copies" ITV!

How do you work that out? DA is ITVs highest rating drama and NT is not the BBCs highest rating drama so not really a good/fair comparision at all.

NT averaged around 8.35m last year and is averaging around 8.1m this year. It did average in the 9m in 2011 but has generally been a high 7m/ low 8m show.

Downton, George - your show is called "Downton".

Downtown was an easy listening hit by Petula Clarke.

You're really miffed that UD was brought back by the Beeb, aren't you? You never miss a chance to bring it up...


Officially, yes. And it got about 9m in the officials just the other week....

Still miles behind Doc Martin.... Despite big name recasting.