all good ratings for last night, Im a bit shocked at how well the Royal held up agains lark rise...

I notice that Demons got a strong 633k last night, taking its total audience to 6.4m (6.2-6.3 if you take away multiple viewings).

ITV FA Cup - Gillingham v Aston Villa:

Programme average - 3m
Match average - 3.1m

How much advertising revenue will that have brought in? As previously posted, ITV average game rights cost = £3.4m, average total advertising revenue in a 24 hour day = £4m.

ITV replay is Southend v Chelsea - kick-off 8.10pm - presumably to allow full soap schedule + an advert before kick-off.

Sky - PDC World Darts Final:

Programme average - 809,000 (3.5%)
Peak - 1.1m

Not bad as it was a walkover.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009...ynda-la-plante

I'm really pleased that Above Suspicion did well for ITV. It was a great drama in my opinion and I'm looking forward to tonight's conclusion. I can see it comfortably getting over 6 million again tonight. Hopefully the good figure will mean a series.

It's a winner Ted. Good for Above Suspicion, hope it does well again tonight.

Anyway, I'm wondering about ITV and what Peter Fincham is going to do to sort out the early evening schedule.

At the least, he should swap the Tuesday and Wednesday schedules round, so Corrie and The Bill are in stable slots on Tuesday nights. Then the BBC would be free to put EastEnders and Holby City on Wednesdays.

ITV must move Corrie and The Bill to stable slots otherwise it risks their long term future. Viewers don't want their favourite shows being kicked around the schedule week in, week out.

Very good ratings for ITV, considering their "flop"ness with Dramas recently.

I'm surprised how well ITV1 did last night especially The Royal, shame its going to be stopped again this series for Wild at Heart.
I expected both SNP and CBB do better than that but both good figures.

Top 10 most watched programmes of 2009 (Thu-Sun)
1 - 9.30M (35.7%) - EASTENDERS (01/01, 19:30) BBC1
2 - 9.28M (38.3%) - CORONATION STREET (02/01, 20:30) ITV
3 - 9.00M (35.9%) - JONATHAN CREEK CHRISTMAS SPECIAL (01/01, 21:00) BBC1
4 - 8.97M (37.4%) - EASTENDERS (02/01, 20:00) BBC1
5 - 8.94M (37.9%) - CORONATION STREET (02/01, 19:30) ITV
6 - 8.60M (31.3%) - EASTENDERS (01/01, 20:30) BBC1
7 - 7.88M (35.5%) - EMMERDALE (02/01, 19:00) ITV
8 - 7.87M (31.3%) - ANTIQUES ROADSHOW (04/01, 19:00) BBC1
9 - 7.50M (31.9%) - REGIONAL NEWS AND WEATHER (01/01, 18:50) BBC1
10 - 7.20M (29.0%) - WALLACE AND GROMIT: A MATTER OF LOAF AND DEATH (01/01, 19:00) BBC1

* all overnight ratings
Average: 8.45m (34.4%)

Good news for ITV with Demons getting good repeat ratings and Above Suspicion doing so well. Will it hold above 6m tonight?

Just looking at the 9pm slot for the next 2 weeks and there isn't really much going on. ITV seem to have abandoned last years approach of rolling out a stream of new shows at once (MW/EB, Honest, The Palace).

Instead, we have BBC1 running repeats of Vicar of Dibley again. Tonight and tomorrow night will see 2 crime factual shows on BBC1 and ITV1 are running Total Emergency on Thursday and the floptastic sounding Big Fat Diet tomorrow night.

http://www.thefa.com/TheFACup/TheFACup/Fixtures/

14 Jan 2009 20:10 Southend United v Chelsea
Live on ITV1

No surprise there. I think most of us expected that to be the live game.

I expect VoD is just filler until a new sitcom is ready for the 9.30pm slot, I expect either Not Going Out or The Old Guys to take the slot.

The Tuesday and Wednesday slot is pretty poor on ITV1 and BBC One and gives an easy ride for BBC Two, Channel 4 and Five to get big ratings for their new or existing shows.

I agree that the Tuesday slot is poor, but on Wednesdays is Waterloo Road, that's not "pretty poor" when it gets 5/6 million viewers.

Really promising repeat ratings for Demons.

Great to see two ITV dramas perform well over the weekend. The big test is to see if both can hold the audience for the second episodes, but at least people are giving ITV drama a go again-as many ITV dramas haven't captured the publics imagaination for even the first episode over the past few months! Above Suspicion seemed to get good reviews aswell, which bodes well for a full series. And isn't that ITV's best start for a new drama since 2007???

ITV played a risk last night with a schedule which could have easily flopped-moving TV Burp out of its slot, putting The Royal up against a BBC drama appealing to similar audience and launching a new drama, but it paid off for them with ITV winning primetime overall. Also it's nice to see The Royal back up a bit with a good schedule around it and no Top Gear, but it's still not what it should be getting at this time of year.

Great performances for Antiques Roadshow & the new series of Lark Rise. BBC2 also had a good night, despite no TG.

0.6m for a repeat of Demons is pretty decent aswell.

ITV should win primetime tonight & Friday this week. Tuesday seems to be flop zone for the next couple of weeks anyway and Total Emergency I think could turn out like The People's Hospital.
-----

Just a couple of points about GMTV I noticed this morning:
-Richard Arnold saying 6m watched it...hmm it's been struggling to get 1m lately.
-Todd Carty saying 11/12/13m will be watching him on DOI this Sunday...I doubt it will be that much for the first episode up against AR and Lark Rise. I'm sure these reality TV stars are told more people are actually watching...it happens with everything including Big Brother, IAC and The X Factor.
-The revamp didn't seem much different to me and it actually looked like it was cartoony, especially with the News which just made me LOL. I can't see the ratings increasing much.

I think RA is referring to the weekly viewership, BBC Breakfast does 1-2m so getting 6m unless it's a sporting event would be impossible at that time of the morning.

Putting crime dramas on Fridays works for ITV1 as evident with WITB and is a good alternative to the comedies.

I have high hopes for L&O:UK and I think it will be a success for ITV1 with 5-6m. I expect it will be promoted very heavily in the coming weeks.

Established crime dramas will always do the business on Fridays I think, but they will always be about 1 millioin down on what they can manage on any other day I think. I doubt T&R will be able to pull in much more than 5m for a Midsomer repeat.

ITV drama should be performing very well over the next few months with a lot of crime dramas, one area ITV are excelling in at the minute.

Regarding tonight I can see FIVE having a big flop on their hands with War Zone, as it's a topic many people don't like to watch. Around 0.7/8m I'm expecting.

Five have had successes with war related docs with Warship doing well for them and Combat Chefs did alright for them. I expect 1m+ for Warzone.

1m is an average, but nobody watches the entire show. The reach could well be 6m based upon people watching an average of 30-40 minutes each.

Yeah, ITV do seem to have changed their tactics, which I think may pay off for them as Unforgiven should do well next Monday, as should Trial on Friday. Wednesdays are out of the question because of football, and Total Emergency should do OK. Tuesdays look dreadful though, and I expect Big Fat Diet, Extreme Slimmers, T&S and the upcoming The Truth About Beauty all to fail miserably.

On BBC1, meanwhile, Hustle is the only new (ie, not a repeat) 9pm drama airing, yet Traffic Cops on Mondays, New Tricks repeats on Tuesdays, documentaries on Wednesdays and QI on Fridays should all do reasonably well. Vicar of Dibley repeats on Fridays will fail, though.

Both channels are rolling out their big guns slowly, though, and I imagine that Unforgiven will be replaced by Whitechapel, and Hustle with either Ashes to Ashes or Hotel Babylon. I think what they are doing is a good tactic, as look at the state that ITV were in last Summer, with no real hits apart from the soaps and Midsomer. Neither channel wants to be in that state again, and BBC1 were clever last year by holding New Tricks back until the Summer, when it had little competition. It looks like ITV are holding Benidorm and possibly Doc Martin back until the Summer, and I can't see everything in their press pack airing before the Summer.

Saving shows so that they always have a decent slate of programmes airing is the way forward, even if the schedules do suffer slightly now, as they will be far better in the Summer.

Wonder when Moving Wallpaper makes its return and where it will go ? Friday nights once T&R finish ?

Partnered up with Mumbai Calling as a "Comedy Double" ?

I can see it being paired with either Mumbai Calling, Al Murray's new sketch show or Headcases. I hope it'll air midweek rather than Friday, though.

The fact ITV recomissioned a show which got 1.7m in primetime shows ITV didn't recomission it because of the ratings! ITV would be very stupid to put it back on Fridays and I can't see it airing on Fridays. ITV I think realise they made a mistake first time round and want to rectify it for its secodn series. They obviously think it has potential.

Also I agree with Score that some BBC and ITV big hits will be left for the Summer.

Yep, I think it could get 4-5m on a midweek evening, and perhaps even higher with some other good comedies surrounding it. The promotion would need to be superb, though.


Yes, the Summer is no longer a TV wasteland, and ITV in particular need to stop treating it like one.

Has the rating for Help I'm No Bigger Than A Bug been reported for ITV on Sunday 28th December at 6pm as it had no promotion whatsoever, and was in one of ITV's worst Sundays for years, so I'm interested to see how it did.

Thanks.

Would I be right in thinking that looks alot better than the 2008 lineup did, 5 days in?