BBC Three seems to have had a very good night judging by the all-day share. 1.8% is well above normal. Indicates that the England women's WC qualifier against Turkey did well.

Say what you will about this decision by both ITV and BBC to launch new drama on Thursday night at the same time at least it makes the night more exciting. Those are some seriously uninspiring line-ups from last night and it shows in the numbers.


In theory Big Bang Theory should be up on last years opener by a decent margin given that its going from a 30 minute opener to an hour. But as we saw on Wednesday that didn't work out quite so well for Modern Family.

Always amuses me that when a character returns he/she immediately finds work in the Square (or Street) and accommodation, probably staying with someone free.Not exactly ''real life.''

Peaky Blinders at 1.7m (8.4%) is now below the BBC Two slot average. Disappointing for this drama really. I expect it will have fizzled out before Truckers & Breathless start in 2 weeks.

The return of another major character still couldn't lift Eastenders to 7m.

I would expect Breathless will comfortably beat Truckers as it has been trailed much more and is a major period drama. All expectations will be for it to beat Truckers by a million and Truckers to rate around 3.5million.

Really upset about peaky blinders- one of the best period dramas I have ever seen, such a shame to see it fall below the slot average. Perhaps its not the 'mainstream' period dramas people are after now- i.e. the 'fluffy', heart warming dramas like downton, call the midwife, paradise, mr selfridge. Such a shame......brilliant acting, astonishing production values, fantastic script.

Like "Ade in Britain".

Oh, wait.....

I agree and said as much on the us tv shows forum here on DS, is George Dixon scheduling for CBS now?

in regards to truckers and breathless, to be honest they both look absolute crap to me having seen the trailers and read the plot. Just can't fathom why truckers was commissioned in the first place and breathless just looks really tacky- like a really bad version of CTM and mad men together- nothing like call the midwife.

To get high ratings andrewskatie, its not about being a high quality drama. It's about ticking boxes. A drama which is light hearted, fluffy, good sceneries, no swearing, no grit, no sex, not dark, self contained episodes is always more likely to rate better than a drama without all those features.

Women’s World Cup Qualifier (BBC3) 7pm-9pm
564,000 (2.9%)

You don't remember the likes of Cracker, Touching Evil and Band of Gold, then?

The Russians was hideous, stupid inane pointless voids whose fortune was relieved from the poor Russian taxpayers were never going to be a ratings hit, sad to say but none of them has any redeeming traits and they were utterly vile.

39k was 38.9k too much.

They never used to get as high ratings ad Heartbeat or Darling Buds of May though, did they. They got good ratings but the absolute pinnacle ratings wise tends to be those light, fluffy dramas.

I think they did......"calling Steve Williams!"

I'd guess this is the year TBBT will see its crown slip, I like the show but it is now rather tedious, what made it work is no longer working and the last season was very hit and miss.

Actually, they didnt.

Theres plenty of examples in the last year of the lighter drama winning the ratings in head to heads. Last Autumn, Good Cop went head to head with Bletchley Code. Good Cop was one of the most praised dramas of last year. But Bletchly won in the ratings because unlike Good Cop, which was dark, complex and had a lot of grittiness to it, Bletchley was more of a mainstream who-dunnit affair set in a period setting with very little complexity or darkness to it. Naturally Bletchley was always going to be more appealing to the mainstream audience even though Good Cop was the better drama.

Earlier this year Ripper Street vs Mr Selfridge. Ripper Street got the better reviews but Selfridge won because the latter was a light, fluffy drama with nice sceneries, costumes, not gritty at all or complex or dark. A couple of weeks ago By Any Means was beaten by Vera, which says it all.

In a couple of weeks time, Breathless will beat Truckers for similar reasons. Breathless seems like a lighter drama, set in the 1950s which will appeal more to the OAPs, with a medical side to it which will help. Truckers on the other hand lacks all of that, and even if it ends up getting better reviews or is higher quality, it wont be as accessible as Breathless so will end up getting lower ratings.

Being a high quality drama does not result in higher ratings. Theres so much more which comes into it.

So ITV's 9pm factual offering beat BBC1 factual offering. This is becoming quite a regular occurrence, plus it beat the BBC last attempt at a prison documentary, confirming ITV as the No1 channel for factual programmes.

It also managed to knock Educating Yorkshire down 700k from last week to 2.6/7million. inc+1.

AGREED AND ANNOYED!!

How do you know Breathless has been trailed more than Truckers, unless you watch ITV and BBC all the time. Surely the expectations of Breathless are lower as you stated last week with a low 2million lead in?

How many of u will watch truckers,to see if it's as bad as it looks!

*FILLER KLAXON* I wish this thread wouldn't just write off all factual as "filler". Factual programming has consistently had its place on primetime, we pointed out the other day Police Camera Action used to get well over ten million and shows like Crimewatch have been a part of the schedule for thirty years now. DIY SOS is a popular series, it always gets a good audience and clearly people like it.

Super Giant Animals wasn't "filler", they didn't find a gap in the schedule and ask Steve Backshall if he could pop to South America and swim with a Great White Shark. It's been in production for months. It's a natural history programme in the grand tradition of the BBC. Didn't get great ratings, because Attenborough aside these shows generally don't, but it was educational and ticked some PSB and factual boxes.

It's not possible to have copper-bottomed classics from 7pm to 10pm seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year. In the past you'd see far more repeats and imports in primetime which you don't see nowadays.


Prison documentaries is not a genre! A programme about a women's prison is not releated to a programme about death row! They have done some programmes about prisons but they don't have a department churning them out.



Yes, Cracker was a huge success to the extent there was all that kerfuffle about moving News at Ten, which ITV were desperate to do because it was such a big show for them. Band Of Gold was a massive hit and shows like Wire In The Blood have been consistent performers.

Whereas if you lok at Cold Feet initially that wasn't that much of a hit, some at ITV did have, heh, cold feet about giving it the 9pm slot. Darling Buds was a smash hit but that was cos it was the Darling Buds and further attempts to create something in that style, like Uncle Silas, failed to catch on. Things like Bonkers, Great Night Out and Married Single Other in recent years have all failed to meet expectations and certainly didn't get the audiences the miserable likes of Waking The Dead and Silent Witness consistently get.


No it wasn't. There has been one episode of By Any Means, which was shown opposite Downtown Abbey.

What would be the point in that?

Actually, I kinda agree with samuel. With truckers vs breathless, I think they're both really bad but its hardly going to be the ratings battle of the season and breathless might just win but not by that much. I'm thinking both itv and bbc know how bad their respective dramas are and are just putting them on a thursday night (instead of the better monday/tuesday or even sunday slot) with crap lead-in shows (pat and cabbage) so hoping they will both die quietly.

Truckers looks like one of those dramedy Sky zone commissions (a la Starlings)