Hopefully never.

Can you imagine Bad Education on BBC1? I can't, it would look so out of place. Big School is more BBC1's level.

How coincidental that your initial response to virtually every EE argument is "This.".

Bake-Off peaked with 6.1m (24.4%) at 20:50.

The football peaked with 5.8m (24.5%) at 9pm.

Later Live… with Jools Holland: 677k (3.8%)

Yawn.

It's becoming hard to compare BBC and ITV ratings nowadays.

Long long ago the BBC and ITV would have a huge cross-over audience, BBC a good bit posher of course. But for most people BBC/ITV were offering similar programming.

Now it's like comparing apples and oranges, BBC/ITV programmes increasingly attract very different people.

"EastEnders" is now on the road to recovery anyway. The past three weeks have included proper points of direction in the story. The plots contain either an arrival or departure and focus more on characters. The new producer is excellent at stories and once we come to an end of the current producers plans his work will begin to take the ratings by a hold. Lorraine Newman episodes have been adequate of late. I like that she brought some good things back to the show at the last lap. I do think they need to hold on to her idea of sometimes happy endings on the show and making it warmer to the audience.

Yeah a strong itv makes the BBC work harder.

Itv has become increasingly obssesed with increasing episodes of shows.

"The X Factor" has a double episode. "Coronation Street" is not allowed to have a break if something replaces an evening when its on so the stick an hour of it somewhere else in the schedules to catch up. "Emmerdale" is on constantly.

Itv was stronger when it had lots of different programmes and really high quality drama. I think that some of the 90's advertising shows just how much quality popular drama they had. They had series that really returned well. And they would mix it up with light entertainment. They have become over reliant on their soap operas and dumbed down their programming.

Which is no different to what happens on BBC1.

The number of ITV Soap episodes have not changed for over 10 years, so strange usage of the word 'increasingly'

EastEnders is never dropped, last week had 2 EXTRA episodes for no reason.

Casualty & Holby City are never dropped, so for example at Christmas they will be thrown out on a different day, if the usual day is unavailable. Waterloo Road increased from 20 to 30 episodes a series.

Strictly has started a week earlier than usual so has been extended

The One Show is often extended to an hour

The list goes on.

I'd have thought Bake Off would be pinched by BBC One for future series.

I'm one of those that would never have discovered Bad Education if the iplayer hadn't put up episodes in advance - it's very good and wouldn't worry about the ratings drop, people will watch in their own time.

SPOTY date confirmed (no suspense this year, Andy Murray's a certainty)...

Facebook - BBC Sport

Sue Barker has decided to step down as a presenter of BBC Sports Personality of the Year after 19 years in the role.
But the broadcaster will be on the judging panel for this year's awards - the 60th anniversary of an event which celebrates success for the UK's sportsmen and women.
The show will be broadcast live from the First Direct Arena in Leeds on Sunday, 15 December, when Gary Lineker, Clare Balding and Gabby Logan will share the presenting duties.

To go back to itv though they were never so reliant on one light entertainment formula. Simon Cowell and Ant and Dec shows run throughout the year. He has a monopoly over the channel just now. BBC One commits to different types of shows throughout the whole year in a way which itv seems to have abandoned.

Head to head with The X Factor Final then. Could be interesting. I remember last time they clashed various people within BBC Sport threw their toys out of the pram about it.

Casualty is dropped on a number of Saturday nights during the year including Eurovision.

The One Show hasn't been an hour for quite a while now.

The constant re-commissioning of Waterloo Road is one of the great mysteries of British television, I can only assume it is to bump up the figures for BBC Scotland's contributions to the network.

The Cowell monopoly is a myth. He is responsible for two landmark shows in BGT & XF. Like BBC One have two landmark shows in SCD & The Voice. The vast majority of ITV light entertainment is not Cowell influenced.

ITV commit to different types of show throught the year, light entertainment, factual, soap, drama, reality, live sport, news.

Apart from the fact he currently presents one of the biggest and most popular shows on the BBC. You can say "Oh, some people watch it despite him" but some other people watch it because of him. I certainly do. If he's not popular enough I don't know who is. Then you've got Miranda as well who is a huge star and was getting over eight million for her series which she dominates from start to finish. A special with those two is an absolute no-brainer.


Given BBC1 has been home to Mrs Brown, Gimme Gimme Gimme and Absolutely Fabulous, I can't see how Bad Education wouldn't fit into that lineage. The fact they're also showing Big School might be an issue but then they're also showing both Room 101 and The Matt Lucas Awards despite the fact they're the same exact format (and I see they're doing a Christmas special of the latter, though it has never rated particularly well).


That is incorrect. Series six and seven both started earlier than this - with the first live shows on 20th and 18th September respectively - because they had sixteen celebrities, one more than this series. This series is one week longer than the last one (hardly a massive imposition in the schedules) but shorter than previous runs.

And as mentioned, Casualty is frequently dropped, the Christmas before last it was off for an entire month. Don't recall The Bill getting much time off when that was a going concern.

Last night Jean got what a lot of viewers wanted 'A Happy ending' the character deserved it and after 8 years I felt it was the right ending. Well written and acted.
The Murder plot and the thing with the Kidney Transplant will be long running plots, As the storylines surrounding Carol and David. The Max,Phil,Carl plot is also a long running story that takes an even more sinister turn in a few weeks. I think EastEnders is heading the right way...slowly but surely

Seems a bit of a biased argument. You make it sound like they're on several times a night all year. In reality you have Takeaway, Talent, X Factor and I'm A Celebrity - the latter of which runs for a couple of weeks and the former just a regular Saturday slot, not on Sundays etc! Hardly dominating anything - and funnily enough they are the most successful entertainment shows on the channel, so you could argue why aren't they dominating more

Oh and let's be very real about this - if BBC had an Ant & Dec (which they absolutely don't, and neither does ITV have anyone else close to their popularity presenting wise) you can be damn sure they'd be wheeled out across 3 or 4 shows a year. As would make sense!

Everything you've pointed out is nothing more than common sense for a channel to work.

As for being more diverse as a whole, yes BBC1 tends to be, but not by some huge margin - it's only because they can have some decent documentaries (different to ITV's "factual" like Long Lost Family, I'm thinking the wildlife shows) and investment in more comedy. But otherwise not really - they both try all sorts with varying results. ITV is probably that bit more cautious because failure will affect them more.

Brilliant rating for Emmerdale, almost touching 38% share too

Interesting to see where this goes - the storyline appears to climax this week but we all know October is going to be bigger and centered on the same story, so it should stay solid for the next month

Really agree that EE ws good last night and there are signs of a recovery but as others have said there is no real evidence in terms of shares etc of any real improvement. Raw ratings are up due to larger potential audience at this time of year.

It was only about an hour long clash last time though, wasn't it?

It got 4.7m that night as opposed to XF's 15.6m.

Won't the result be deemed a bit predictable this year, however (Andy Murray)? It doesn't have the benefit of following on from the Olympics so it'll probably not rate anywhere near as high as it did last year.

Of course, it's a bit early to know how it's going to rate. X Factor may well be scheduled 8pm-10pm as opposed to 7:30pm-9:30pm the last time they clashed.

There was a big clash last time. XF ran 7.30-9.30 and SPOTY ran 7-9.05. Obviously SPOTY won't do as well as last year but I suspect it'll put up more of a fight than it did in 2009. It'll be interesting to see what slot it gets. Normally it goes 7-9pm (and overruns a bit) but last year it was 7.30-10.30. I'm sure it'll be back down to 2 hours this time but I wonder if they'll go 7-9, 7.30-9.30 or 8-10, especially as they'll have the Strictly results before it. That could determine where XF goes.

Hasnt the X Factor Sunday results always aired at 8.00pm? Can

But it will be only on against the football three times this season, and if ITV's next match involves Arsenal and is poor, then BBC One doesn't have that much to worry about. Group stages of the ECL aren't such a huge threat as if NT was shown in the spring when the tournament is in its knockout stages.
Also it's right there should be a good alternative to a football match for the millions who have no interest in it.

Hadn't Channel 5 been showing promos for a new show about "hen's behaving badly" or something for 10pm Friday?

Was that supposed to start this Friday after Super Spa? But now a film is on at 9, it's been dropped..?

EDIT: Seems it's been delayed till 4th October, with Fridays being:

8:00pm New: Monster Moves
9:00pm New: Hens Behaving Badly
10:00pm New: Celebrity Wedding Planner

This is true and I certainly agree that monopoly and domination are the wrong words to be thrown around in this situation but there is I think still legitimate cause for concern on this front. Your comparison between the X Factor/Britain's Got Talent combo on ITV and the Strictly/Voice combo on BBC1 is fatefully flawed in that it fails to take into account that Strictly and The Voice are entirely separate shows in a way that The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent never have been and probably never can be. If Simon Cowell were to pack-up shop and call it a day next year then that would be a disaster of epic proportions for ITV because they'd instantly lose their two biggest entertainment hits. Not only that but they'd lose shows that provide valuable promotional opportunities for other shows and shows that we know can artificially inflate the ratings of the 'lower tier' shows ITV place around it. There isn't a single person that can do that level of damage to to the BBC schedule and it does potentially give Cowell undue influence and power at ITV. Not that I'm suggesting he necessarily makes use of that for evil means or anything.

Usually it has.

Two occasions where its been extended by 15 minutes (starting at 19:45), and one occasion where its run from 19:30-20:30.

Since they've had the two night final, its usually been from 19:30-21:30. It was pushed a bit later than that last year.

Seeing the breakdown for the 2009 final, it would have averaged 16.1m (54%) had it run from 20:00-21:30, as opposed to 15.6m (53%) for the two hour slot. Probably would have averaged higher had it run from 8-10pm (like it did on the Saturday final last year). I can't expect SPOTY to knock off too many viewers off XF but its too early to call.

What's the earliest the Strictly results show can go?

Meanwhile over in the US

After the highs of Sleepy Hollow's debut on Monday night Fox is beginning the bumpy descent back to earth. Their second attempt at a two-hour Tuesday comedy block has not gotten off to the greatest start. And tonight week two of X Factor US begins.

Dads – 2.1 [5.57 million]
Brooklyn Nine-Nine – 2.5 [6 million]
New Girl – 2.9 [5.56 million]
The Mindy Project – 1.9 [3.95 million]

Brooklyn Nine-Nine got a decent enough sampling I suppose and New Girl isn't a complete disaster although its failure to break a 3 given the general lack of competition has to be a little concerning. I cannot for the life of me understand why they renewed Mindy (that's not entirely true) and critics will be happy that Dads hasn't gotten off to a great start but not completely happy since it isn't completely DOA. None the less its probably in the best interest of Fox to switch Mindy and Brooklyn Nine-Nine as soon as possible. Get Brooklyn away from the on coming storm that is SHIELD and NCIS and hope you can salvage a decent hour from this comedy block.

Also America's Got Talent (2.4) continues to limp toward the end of its season and Iron Man 2 (1.2) didn't exactly set the world alight on ABC. Although its a terrible film so that's hardly a big surprise.