Would the more mass appeal of pubs and clubs (and those places having TV's) not be detrimental?

You can see a WC Final being one massive party across the UK

I would say

* SCD should win

* The Chase is in a poor position with what we know is a terrible lead in - will do well to increase

* XF needs a substantial increase to gain some momentum for the remaining lives - even figures like last years may not be enough

* Atlantis needs to be nearer 5m than 4 otherwise it might look like its losing momentum

* Dont understand why Ross is still on to be honest is 2m all he can hope for these days?

All we know is that it's definitely going to get the nation talking.

Usually, across all TV, only half of the population watches it (in the winter, particularly, or when a huge 15-20m rater is on at any time of the year).

40m for a football final, outrating the 1966 one (of course, should it ever happen) just still seems a bit optimistic.

He didn't have a great lead-in last autumn.

It's the demos that keep him going.

It's not going to do as well as Through the Keyhole, the way I see it.

Nice to hear from a fellow HDista. I avoid SD wherever possible and cannot wait for fully regionalised BBC One HD in England which is planned for the not-too-distant. (The Executive has to submit proposals to the Trust by January for that and also for BBC Two HD variations for the nations.)

I understand the only regionalised ITV HD versions in England are London, Granada, Central West and Meridian South. There are also STV HD and UTV HD.

If you were a BARB participant, and you watched ITV SD and ITV HD during the week for more than three minutes each, you would count towards both ITV SD and ITV HD reach. If you didn't watch three minutes of ITV SD but watched on HD then you would count towards the ITV HD reach only, and thus ITV's SD-only reach would understate the true channel reach as far as you are concerned.


Interesting point. No doubt ITV have done research and make much of this, and charge a premium for such events on this basis. However, does anyone pay attention to the ads in pubs?

So a fifth of the population who apparently like football didn't bother with England's quarter final last summer then, and there was no casual audience then either?

I guess it depends on what the demos were like. I've watched 4 of the 6 episodes so far, and I can see why the gothic and gory direction turned viewers, especially elderly viewers away. However, if it was a good hit with 16-34s and ABC1 audiences it might be saved. I can't see many elderly viewers, who like other detective shows having stuck with it, so the demos might go in its favour.

The football scored very well indeed. I imagine Tuesday's rating v Poland will be well over 7m. Bake Off will be dented.

Apart from Eastenders, BBC1 had a relatively good evening. Graham Norton did stunningly at 10.35pm.

BBC2 once again escaping most people's attention with a decent little night. Good shares for Gardener's World and QI.

Channel 4 did very poorly until Chatty Man at 10pm. SHIELD will probably timeshift well, but I think it would have lost 300k-400k viewers, even if it hadn't come up against the football. Channel 5's schedule was dreadful and the figures reflect that.


Thanks for clarifying that D.M.N. I thought DS had got it wrong.

It was really that the BBC transmitter network was far ahead of ITV having opened its first transmitter outside London (Sutton Coldfield) in 1949 and Holme Moss in 1951.With the opening of the Wenvoe transmitter in 1952 BBC TV covered 81% of the population.By 1954 the BBC claimed 91% coverage.By the end of 1965 BBC 1 covered 99.4 % of the population.The ITV transmitter programme began in 1955 with Croydon in London but the ITA (as then was) claimed they covered 98% of the population by 1967 (ITV Handbook 1967).Areas uncovered by ITV in 1966 (but covered by the BBC) included western Scotland, parts of Northern Ireland, much of mid-Wales, south-west Scotland and parts of the Borders.

Everyone knows bad weather keeps more ITV core viewers in than BBC ones. BBC core audiences are more resilient, but also less likely to have to rely on public transport, which (I imagine) is unpleasant if it is wet and windy.

Conversely excellent weather gets more BBC viewers out and about as they are more outdoorsy and upwardly mobile, and ITV cores don't much care for pleasant evening walks in the park or a BBQ round at number 32.

TXF should see a big uplift tonight and tomorrow looking at the forecast.

I'd say if you added the home audience, pubs, clubs, workplace televisions together, then it would come in at 36-40 million. Also in 1966 pub televisions were rare, as they tended to be hefty valve sets that wouldn't take kindly to being plonked on a wall.
There always will be a considerable minority who hate football that wouldn't watch it regardless, the 1966 World Cup final wasn't watched or listened to by a third of the population, same as republicans are unlikely to watch a coronation. I'd watch it through gritted teeth, but would still be pleased if England won.

btw, I enjoyed ratings nerd Richard Osman on HIGNFY last night discussing Pointless's place in "shoulder peak" or "access peak". Not seen those terms used before, and I don't think anyone on here has commented on it.

I'm giving a minimum figure for the World Cup, 40 per cent or so of the population are fans, but something like England progressing to a world cup final would pull in millions more casual fans as it would be a one off in most people's lives. Either way it would be an unlikely minimum of 25 million and a more likely figure of 40 million as more people have televisions than 1966 and the population is bigger. I'm not a fan, but England in a world cup final is akin to London 2012.

I would predict a 28m overnight average if England was in the final of the World Cup against Germany, against anyone else, probably around 25m. Don't think it would reach 30m at all, maybe as a peak.

But you are right that a lot of non footie fans will tune in because of it being a once in a lifetime viewing. I don't support England, I support Italy. Any chance anyone has the ratings for 2006 World Cup on Italian TV? That may give us some information in how well England could rate because it will show us how many more viewers would tune into a final versus a regular match.

Let's deal with the demos first. From rzt's tables we can see that the first three episodes of Whitechapel had ABC1 Adult skews of 40%, 44% and 44% (exc +1), way below Downton Abbey's 56% achieved on 22 September. And of course, Abbey gets around three times as many viewers in total and so is seen on average by more than four times the number of ABC1 Adults as Whitechapel.

The 16-34 skew for the first three episodes was 11%, 13% and 11% exc +1, in line with Downton's. That equates to less than 400k (exc +1) although this kind of drama is most likely sold on ABC1 Adults, 1.3m-1.4m of whom (exc +1) did watch Whitechapel's first three episodes.

Overall the fourth series averaged 3.2m overnight viewers (a 15% share), or 3.5m/16% including +1. This is down by -42% (inc +1) on the last series which aired on Mondays in winter 2012 with a Corrie lead-in. The seasonal difference and move away from high-viewing Monday explain the less dramatic drop in share (down -33% inc +1).

The series has been timeshifting much better than last year, so the drop on last series in consolidated figures is 'just' -30% approximately (inc +1) for the three episodes for which we have full data so far, compared with the first three of the 2012 run.

Whereas Strictly will drop, yes?

I watch everything where possible in HD and I totally agree about the regionalised BBC1HD - how annoying is it when that b****y red screen comes on.

Are there actually that many people left who only ever seem to watch ITV? I think that generation would be mostly dead now and everyone has access to Freeview. Maybe you'd get the odd person who only watches one of the two main stations, but I'd think people switch over at least once during the day.I can't see some pensioner who watches Emmerdale( awful stereotype, though) wanting to watch some 19 year old sing a song they've never heard of.

Of course it will as all those young healthy demos decide its too cold to go out and wrestle the remotes off their elderly parents who are too infirm to put up a fight and who are then forced to watch XF.

Cruelty I call it - call social services.

I didn't think they let people out to go to BBQs and evening walks from nursing homes?

I haven't watched yet, but I have heard of "shoulder peak", referring to the early fringe of primetime, of course. The BBC defines peak as starting at 18:00, and so would consider Pointless as airing in shoulder peak. "Access peak" is a new one on me, though.

I've known 5pm called Shoulder Peak ever since the Paul O'Grady/Richard & Judy era of 5pm shows. It probably started to be known as this when the Australian soaps moved away from the main channels and when the news scheduling changed on ITV. Before then the 5pm hour didn't have much of any significance.

As it is XFactors first live show of the series, which has been trailed all across Itv over the last week, I expect it to be rating in the high 8s/low 9s tonight and close the gap on SCD. I'll be shocked if it doesnt get more than 8.5million excluding +1.

But that doesn't mean more people would watch in population % terms.
The UK population is 63.2m, so on the 40m guess you're assuming 63% of the population is watching.
6.2% are under 5 (4m). Ignore them.
5.6% are 5-10 (3.2m) Ignore at least half of them.

You're down to 57.6m, so your assumption is already now up to 69.3% of the potential public watching.

26.3m (48.5%) are female. If 50% watch (which is an unlikely high figure), that's 13.15m.
27.9m are male. If 70% watch (which again is an unlikely high figure), that's 19.53m.
That's 34.28m (including the unfeasably high 5-10s figure).
Which is 59.5% of the practical population, and well over half of the total population. Pushing it these days, to put it mildly, and miles from the 69% that 40m would require.

Totally unscientific straw family and partners poll (some assumed, but I know who does and doesn't like football or would bother even 'for the event')
7 (over 30) 4 would actively watch
17 (18-30) 9 would watch
5 (8-18) 3 would watch (all are boys)
that's 16/29 - which is 55% - close to the above figure.

40m ain't going to happen. 35m might at a big squeak, 30m looks more like it.

Not going to happen anyway

I suppose Elizabeth going might attract a fair few