All these posts this morning and we haven't got any actual unaggregated ratings in yet...

I would have thought it had decent competition, in the form of "When Miranda Met Bruce".

Referring to a comment upthread. Brushstrokes was indeed on Fridays before Dynasty as I remember wanting it to finish pronto for my Carrington fix.

X Factor has no X factor. It seems hollow. I thought I would like the reversion to closed auditions but what's the point when they do the arena auditions too?

BBC have attempted to show new LE but this clearly hasn't worked. I like I Love my Country and I could see what they were attempting with The Puppet show. Otherwise Lottery gameshows, Casualty and MOTD. Big hopes for Atlantis and thank goodness for Strictly.

ITV have again attempted new formats such as Splash! but they seem to be reliant on older formats in either a celebrity format...why? Wouldn't it be cheaper/funnier with regular people? What would they do without Ant & Dec and Cowell?

Is this thread about actual ratings though?

The original Brush Strokes was on Mondays at 8.30pm. On Fridays they showed repeats against Corrie a couple of years later.

Yeah that's right! I wasn't a fan.

BBC One had a 18.1pct share for yesterday which is about the same as last week. None of the BBC PR brigade have tweeted the Bruce Forsyth special rating either. So it may not have rated particularly well. That is actually worse news for XFactor if the Bruce Forsyth show rated low [i.e. 3-4million] as it means XF was down even against low rating competition.

Stricly must be the only show that hasn't been effected by the digital age

Strictly is less likely to be affected to the era of fragmented televison viewing due to it presumably attracting older audiences?

In terms of profitability ITV must prefer X factor to strictly? 8m X Factor viewers would be far more lucrative to advertisers than say 10m strictly viewers surely?

Both shows ultimately do exceptionally well for their respective networks, the BBC not existing to make money from adverts is the only FTA network that can truly cater for advertiser unfriendly democratics. That is why their sunday CF and AR stable is so valuable it caters for an audience that commercial networks aren't overly interested in

I'm not sure that anyone was speculating that it would beat Strictly. That was never really on the cards for this year where the aim was to steady the ship. And even that still isn't fully achieved - they still need to get to the end of the series without shedding viewers.


Except ITV aren't in that business - they want to make money and the repeats perform very well for them at no cost. If it were all about PR and total viewers then they could just target old people.

But ITV aren't going to do any of that because they want the money.


They'd probably be in as much of a mess as BBC entertainment, maybe clinging on to Pop Idol or Popstars and splashing huge money on The Voice.

But fortunately, ITV do have A&D and Cowell... because they signed them and backed them and maintained a strong relationship with both. So good work ITV.

Atlantis being pretty much a clone of Merlin could really work against it, as well as the story not being as familiar as King Arthur/Merlin to the general public. Whether that would boost X Factor pretty much depends on The X Factor itself - is it a show people will come back too or is it like EastEnders (and for me Big Brother) and people watching for the first time in ages realise why they stopped watching and find something else to do.

Doubled edged sword for ITV too - they don't really want Atlantis to flop because it woud inevitably be moved to 6pm if it did, pushing Strictly later. That explains why Sam keeps saying it's awful.


Ever thought of a career in politics - you talk enough bull! Love how you spin a (potential) sub-4m rating for Brucie into being a bad night for X Factor.

Only if you're stuck with the mentality of "if someone isn't watching channel Y then they must be watching channel Z". Clearly, most people do neither.

Still no more ratings and DS not updated since Thursday.

Long gone are the days where they would have their ratings article up by 10am.

Still very good for X Factor. Last night's episode wasn't very good though and I wonder how many other people feel the same and won't watch tonight.

DS updated yesterday.

Not this older audience thing again. A lot of my family and friends have elderly relatives and they are not all alike. All of them have Freeview/Sky and operate them perfectly adequately thank you. Neither do they stick to one channel all day. They are just as diverse as any other demographic. Of course they like different things and prefer some channels but so what - some of them even watch XF.

People say that every week though. The Sunday show is bound to be up unless people forget it's on. I don't think it'll be the highest Sunday rating of the auditions though.

4.8% share for Five yesterday, beating BBC Two by 0.3 share points. Strongest Saturday in months. We can safely assume The Great Escape and Hang 'Em High rated well for the channel.

Not often Saturday is comfortably Five's strongest day of the week.

It's a myth that ITV don't want older audiences: they can sell advertising in old-skewing dramas on the basis of ABC1 Adults. Retired people retain the socio-economic status they had when they worked. Of course if shows skew very old AND downmarket and are not cheap (said to be the downfall of Heartbeat for instance) then they're not commercially attractive.

Can I ask what ABC1 refers to? I see it mentioned regularly but didn't want to ask for fear of being labelled as thick!

http://www.abc1demographic.co.uk/

It's a social demographic - based on people's income and spending power. Used across all sorts of industries - not just TV ratings. There's six categories:

A
B
C1
C2
D
E

They're usually grouped into ABC1 and C2DE.

Obviously, for some advertisers - think luxury watches or expensive cars - they're very interested in programmes that reach a lot of the former. So that's how some channels sell ad slots in some of their shows.

(The above link naturally a lot more useful than my explanation!)

But they don't want older audiences (55+). They want ABC1 audiences - ideally a young ABC1 audience. But if that audience happens to be old, provided it is still ABC1, then they'll gladly take it. Ultimately they'll get a higher rate selling ABC1's if those ABC1's are both young and upmarket.

There's never really an occasion where they want to reach the 55+ demographic (not because they're ageist but just because they've got so many of them already!). Only if they're ABC1.

Of course, what ITV have realised is that such a combination of upmarket and young rarely happens for them, particularly not for drama. And after their failed experiments in 2007/2008 (The Palace, Rock Rivals) they're just happy to have a good ABC1 audience, regardless of age!

But it does mean entertainment and sport really has to reach those 16-34's or else ITV1 becomes irrelevant to that audience, which is the most lucrative of all.

Basically abc1s are upmarket, rich, clever people. These people are more likely to watch challenging programs which require thought and concentration compared to the average viewer. Due to how rich and intelligent ABC1 people are on the whole, advertising companies like it if a program has many of these viewers because those viewers more likely to buy expensive products such as cars and luxurious items. BBC One and Two have many programs which are popular with this socio-economic section of society, while it's often stated that Itv is more for the working classes historically.