TXF really is pulling in the viewers this year. 10.9m is huge and the peak of 12.1m is amazing for a Saturday night! It really is the night to stay in (although i went out last night and have just finished watching last nights show).

[quote=ZoeMcCallister;28498765]Fantastic night for ITV1, yet again. The XF continues to increase and I can easily see the final getting BGT style figures now. Harry Hill held up extremely well with his 2 shows and FF held up very well despite Casualty starting right after the XF. This is quite worrying though for BBC1 that Casualty can only pick up 5.6m against Family Fortunes and it is showing signs of decreasing now. Hopefully it will start increasing once the XF finishes, but I doubt it'll be reaching the 7.5m/8m it was reaching at the beginning of the year.
[quote]

Mmmm interesting one this.... I think that Casualty is the victim of a scheduling conundrum - with Saturday night now dominated by 90-minute entertainment shows, it's increasingly difficult to find the right spot for 50-minute continuing drama. The ratings arent catastrophic, but they're not great either. Family Fortunes will have been boosted by being placed between the X Factors, but I think the BBC should be a little concerned about one of its flagship dramas being beaten by a Z-list celeb game show.

Hopefully, as you say, the ratings will rally at the end of this year, start of next year, but if not, I think BBC1 need to think about Casualty's place in the schedule. It might be an idea to look at moving it back to Friday (its home from 1989 to 1991 before it was moved to Saturday), and reducing the number of episodes to about 30 per year to improve quality control. They could arrange this to conicide with the planned move to Cardiff. As a poster said on here a few months back, there is an appetite for drama on Friday nights, and I think BBC1 would do well to respond to this.

Ch4 never perform well on Saturday nights, they just give up!

When all this reality stuff is over, they should consider a big Saturday night show of their own, along the lines of SNL but a UK version, the problem is never mind how good it was chances are people just would not watch cause it's on 4. While you could have a dog doing a sh!t on ITV and people would still tune in!

CH4 need to go back to showing big films, like LOTR right in the middle of peaktime starting at 7.30/8pm opposed to 9pm, because more people are likely to stay up and watch a film that starts in the middle of primetime.

ITV are storming away with things sharewise on Saturday nights. Moving SCD results away to Sunday has done wonders there but viewers are sticking with ITV after SCD and this is having an impact on Casualty. However X Factor is on so much of a high(I think BGT, bad weather and the credit crunch have all helped keep more of its potential audience in this year)that whatever BBC plays later on, barring something unseen, is going to struggle somewhat.
Running SCD into X Factor may reduce the latters figures but the Lottery show isnt boosted to any great extent.
It probably is damage limitation and Casualty and Lottery at least have a respectable audience.

BBC1 seems to be in a pickle. They have strengthened their Sunday line up, but largely by weakening their Saturday line up. One possible alternative is to move Casualty to Sunday so they would have

6pm News
6.15pm Antiques Roadshow
7.15pm SCD Results
8pm Casualty
9pm Drama/ Nature/ Documentary big series

but their Saturday night post SCD would be even more naked then. As it stands Merlin at 7.30pm is picking up a much older "anti X Factor audience" and the lottery show seems tired. Really BBC1 needs to retool its entrire evening from 7.30 to 10.30pm

Sadly I don't know, but if it's even 10% of what Live and Kicking and its predecessors got, I would be amazed. Don't forget that up until, really, the start of this decade, the only things on Saturday mornings would be kids shows on BBC1 and ITV, Open University on BBC2 and various imports and repeats on C4. So the Saturday morning programmes were watched by virtually everyone, kids and adults alike. Whereas now, adults have loads of other things to watch.

I think SMTV's highest was about two million in 2000, but TMI will be lucky if it gets 200,000. Also, TMI finishes at 10.30am whereas in the golden age they ran on until after midday when the number of people watching telly was much higher.

C4 Saturdays in December
Fantasy schedule

Saturday 6th December 2008
18:30 C4 News
19:00 Film: Matilda
21:00 Film: Zoolander

Saturday 13th December 2008
18:30 C4 News
19:00 Film: Dumb & Dumber
21:10 Film: Ghostbusters

Saturday 20th December 2008
18:30 C4 News
19:00 Film: Home Alone
21:05 Film: Ghostbusters II

Saturday 27th December 2008
18:30 C4 News
19:00 Film: Home Alone II - Lost in New York
21:20 Film: Scrooged

^ That's the sort of thing they should be doing on Saturday nights, particularly over Christmas. Great family films that would rate well, for sure.

C4 should show My Best Friend's Wedding again. They haven't shown it in ages. It's a very good film that I think will hold onto viewers.

Youre right about Merlin-Iv said before that its audience is older-right from the very start. Nothing wrong in older viewers, but I dont think that was the intention. Robin Hood and Merlin have had to take the brunt of the X Factor when in other times could well have been huge hits. Maybe its time to try running these presumably expensive shows at other times of the year rather than giving them a rather difficult birth.

Coming back round to the point that so many people so frequently make. Why do the BBC care? In essence 23% isnt that bad for them. Granted it's not brilliant but for such a bland no expense spaired post Strictly lineup it's just fine I'd say. SCD and Merlin fully fufills their public service duties for the night I think anything else is a bonus.

I'm pretty sure once the second XF finished they were back in the lead again with MOTD.

Australian Overnights: Saturday 1st November 2008

ABC (National)
19:00 ABC News 864,000
...
20:30 The Bill (Double Episode) 769,000

Seven (Melbourne, Adelaide & Perth schedule, regional variations indicated by *)
18:00 Seven News 1,161,000
18:30 Movie: Freaky Friday* 341,000
20:30 Movie: Fantastic Four* 371,000

Nine (Melbourne, Adelaide & Perth schedule, regional variations indicated by *)
18:00 Nine News 1,081,000
18:30 Australia's Funniest Home Video Show 879,000
19:30 Movie: Spiderman 2* 272,000
22:15 Movie: Eraser* 241,000

Ten (National)
18:30 Movie: Ice Age 2 The Meltdown 837,000
20:30 Movie: The Interpreter 550,000

SBS (National)
19:30 Mythbusters (R) 309,000
20:30 Iron Chef (R) 290,000
21:20 RocKwiz 323,000
22:00 Classic Albums: The Doors 257,000

*Not shown in Sydney & Brisbane

Sources: OzTAM, SunHerald

Well on an other forum today they are more upset than Jonathon Ross's bank manager.

I do think BBC have always been strong on Saturday nights. Its not really a time for public service documentaries or meaningful drama, so as the national broadcaster I suppose they want to attract big family audiences to entertain the nation on a Saturday night.

PI has a very steady audience considering it is up against strong competition and it serves as a decent lead in for NICS. I wouldn't be surprised if a third series is on the cards.

Australian Ratings: Week 44

1 PACKED TO THE RAFTERS Seven 1,926,000
2 FIND MY FAMILY Seven 1,883,000
3 THE FORCE Seven 1,747,000
4 THE ZOO Seven 1,712,000
5 BORDER SECURITY Seven 1,650,000
6 TWO AND A HALF MEN -WED EP2 Nine 1,548,000
7 60 MINUTES Nine 1,480,000
8 SEVEN NEWS - SUN Seven 1,382,000
9 TWO AND A HALF MEN -WED Nine 1,379,000
10 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,379,000
11 DANCING WITH THE STARS 8 Seven 1,337,000
12 TWO AND A HALF MEN -MON Nine 1,329,000
13 ALL SAINTS Seven 1,295,000
14 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS Seven 1,284,000
15 CRIMINAL MINDS Seven 1,269,000
16 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,258,000
17 CSI Nine 1,256,000
18 NINE NEWS SUNDAY Nine 1,256,000
19 20 TO 1 -SUN Nine 1,255,000
20 SPICKS AND SPECKS ABC1 1,211,000

Seven=12
Nine=7
ABC=1

Shares
Seven 30.4% (-0.2%)
Nine 27.2% (+0.7%)
Ten 19.9% (-0.4%)
ABC 17.4% (-0.1%)
SBS 5.2% (+0.2%)

Source: OzTAM

Packed to the Rafters has become a huge hit for Seven and it's nice to an Australian drama doing really well. I wouldn't be surprised if a US remake turns up on NBC by 2010

Terrible Saturday night for C4.

No Lotto quiz on BBC One next week. Wonder if they'll go ahead with In It to Win It the following Saturday, or leave it for a few more weeks.

Those C4 ratings are atrocious. Dead Set did really well across the week for E4 and those ratings for TXF are huge on ITV1.

Fromula One delayed due to a sudden rain shower in Brazil - wonder whether it'll have a knock on affect with Brittania High, Heartbeat and Sharpe?

As for last night - terrific for both The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing. I don't think BBC will be too worried about Casualty's figures: getting 5m+ against a show given a 10m+ lead in isn't too bad, and it's very consistent. The Lottery is very hit and miss, but I can't see any other show doing any better there. Even the SCD results would be defeated by The X Factor's main show.

Just don't understand why Dead Set wasn't broadcast on Channel 4.

I thought Dead Set was absolutely brilliant, and for all intents and purposes was a full feature film.

Channel 4 are struggling in the ratings, yet they have something as good as Dead Set and relegate it to E4.
Which may be good for E4, but Channel 4 needs all the help it can get.

I think Dead Set on Channel 4 would have really brought the ratings in. It feels as though Channel 4 would have been it's natural home, bringing along with it a brigade of loyal Big Brother viewers.

Did Channel 4 simply not have the bollox to risk showing it on Channel 4 and were basically too scared of getting complaints?
After the ratings performance for the Peter Kay spoof of The X Factor I would have thought that Channel 4 would have capitalised on that and followed it up with something even more ambitious and brave.

I think Dead Set was slightly wasted on E4 and it would have been much better to have put it on Channel 4 to open it up to a wider audience.
Sometimes I think Channel 4 make some daft decisions and wasted an opportunity here by not making the decision to broadcast Dead Set on Channel 4.

I'm not surprised that Channel 4 aren't doing well because their programming is really bog standard predictable fare. If it isn't cooking then it's about people buying properties.
They seem to have a tendency of filling their primetime schedule with programmes which are really in effect daytime TV shows.

When you're faced with the option of self-righteous TV chefs preaching and telling you to eat your greens because they're good for you, or a meat eating zombie holocaust, there really is only one choice for me.

Formula One running over on ITV1, as they try to pick up the post race interviews. Could be a great viewing figure for them, especially after that brilliant finish. I think they'll regret not trying to hard to keep it for next season.

Britannia High started at 7.15pm, which will push ITV's line up 15 minutes backwards.

You reckon it's as low as 200k? No wonder it's so low budget compared to L&K and SMTV. It's a shame though because it's actually pretty good. I'd like to see Sam, Mark and Caroline go over to BBC1 to do a slightly more grown-up version of it. I so miss Live and Kicking.

It could be 10 or 11 million peak and I dont think fate could have been any kinder to ITV today. That said huge ratings are only ever going to be in this one race and in this one circumstance and maybe its more value to BBC1 with decent afternoon shares than with ITV.
At the end of the day ITV had a contract for five years which they have failed to see through, obviously seeing their future with football rather than F1.

E4 get a budget and they commission their own programmes.

E4 commissioned it and paid for it. I doubt any other channel would commission a horror series set in the Big Brother house, written by a TV critic. They deserve to show it.