What about Question Time, Graham Norton and new comedies which launch in that cushy 22:40 slot?


We did: 600k (8.8%) from 23:25 to the 26:00/02:00 cut-off (it actually ran from 23:26 until 26:12/02:12).

I don't know why they didn't just play it tomorrow afternoon on BBC One: it would have nicely slotted in from 13:15 to 16:00, displacing four repeats. Perhaps they thought nearly three hours of EastEnders was a bit much on a Sunday.

You're right, for the next three Fridays the omnibus is slated for 23:25, 23:25 and 23:20, with a Graham Norton lead-in. It's daft. If you're out until very late on a Friday night you miss all three showings for that day.

That's my point but reading the flood of comments regarding last night's you'd think it had averaged 4m or more, had broken new ground in television history.

High for Channel 5 though especially with less promo and stronger competition. And what flood of comments? Look more carefully, "us BB fans" on average thought the show would average around 2.8-3.1m on the forums. No one ever commented saying they thought it would be 4m+. You're making stuff up now.

EastEnders got 461k on BBC3 that night putting its aggregated total up to 9.65m.

Praise for SB - thats a first on here.

That made me laugh!

SB's Corrie benefited purely from the fact EE has lost audience faith over the year... Corrie won cos EE's figure was low not cos Corrie did much better... In the actual overnight excluding +1 there was barely a few thousand between them in the ratings.

SN did nothing to help Corrie beat EE, EE just handed it over by having spent a year doing, er, nothing

But look at it now... reaction to Xmas New Year and last night has been through the roof.

If both show's keep heading in the directions they're going, it'll be a very different story come this Xmas...

Thanks ronant for posting a CBB breakdown earlier. Much appreciated.

You do know its against the law to actually add in the BBC3 repeat. Thats why Robbies in hiding.

I watch neither but am aware the selection process for CBB has become pretty formulaic, bring on the former celeb with major money issues, and the one with mental or addiction issues.

Amy Childs, Sam Faiers etc.

I note fans are currently complaining about the crap repetitious launch night twists of CBB.

so 9.5million for Downton + 3.4m totals = roughly 12.9million.

Not too shabby, all who wanted to see it have, the rpt prably works better for ITV than to not have one. It means they get more ad revenue out of it rather than one showing and 4m+ timeshift.

Didn't it average 3.4 million, which would be one of the lowest launch nights ever, and no doubt a million will desert tonight? I saw the line up and CBB is relying more and more on contestants from other reality shows. While yes it does good business for Channel 5, it's very much a niche thing that only the hardcore fans and Richard Desmond owned media care about.

Higher than the two summer series on Ch5 and around 100k down on the two winter series. I would say that's pretty good with little promo and higher compeition.

Of course it will be down tonight, it's a Saturday, but it should average in the mid 2m across the run I would predict.

Great ratings for EE and Silent Whitness there. EE deserved more as it was a cracking episode last night.

I have lost patience with the poster. He turns up every series, sulks over the fact some of us are pleased to see the show performing so well, scrats around trying to find negatives that barely exist or if they do they would be filed under minor quibbles at best, and then disappears into the background until his next opportunity. I'm not sure what he hopes to achieve doing this given most have already come to more sensible conclusions but I will no longer be entertaining him unless to correct inevitable 'mistakes' with the stats he shares. It appears as though he might just be here to ruffle feathers.

Isn't it the case that anyone who recorded the Xmas Day first showing but then never watched that recording until after the repeat had aired would be counted as timeshift for the repeat and not the Xmas Day episode? That would then suggest it wouldn't necessarily be that people deliberately chose the repeat, but that people were just somewhat slower in their catchup viewing.

Without a launch night twist would it survive though? That is C5's key dilemma. After the success of "Secrets and Lies", I don't think fans' calls for abandoning the twist will be taken into account any time soon.

Bad Teacher looks awesome and I'll be tuning into that on Sunday. I think that film will cause CBB major problems. If tonight's highlights rates quite low (it usually rates of course lower than other nights), then another low showing on Sunday might lead some astray. We'll see. Clever Channel 4. I do love a bit of competition.

Ronant how did the repeat of Mrs Brown's Boys and the movies on BBC3 do on Friday 27th?

The BBC treatment of the omnibus is a bit strange as if they were trying to kill it off. I know it matters little to them really as we dont really aggregate but it is surely useful for people who may have missed the program or even like to record the thing in one go.

Agreed. If the show dips by a tiny fraction, he gloats about it. When the show increases the ratings (BB14 for example), he tries to compare the ratings with Channel 4 series... One day I remember he compared a Saturday Channel 5 rating to a high light show rating from 2004.

To be fair BB/CBB has found its level on Channel 5 and while it will never be the big deal it was ten years ago, seems to have been a consistent rater for the channel. Also it gives Channel 5 a sense of identity.
I can't lie and say what a great show it is, but it seems settled in its new( ish) home. 2.5 million seems achievable and anything over 2 is a big hit for Channel 5.

3.4m is a great launch figure for Big Brother and Channel 5 in general. And it is a rating that BBC2 and Channel 4 would have liked at 9pm for some shows too.

Stuart Blackburn getting the credit is going a bit far I think. He was just lucky he inherited the show in a good place from Phil Collinson. That said EE didn't exactly hand anything over, more people just wanted to watch Corrie's Christmas output (which I thought was well justified - both are great at what they try to do but I think Corrie has to get the advantage because it usually has a perfect mix of everything).

EE is great right now and if it keeps going like this I think they're in for a great Christmas as people should know by then it's good again. Though as SamuelW pointed out Corrie is down less than EE on last year so if things continue as they are its victory should be even more convincing

Four have scheduled well this January apart from Hostages which shouldn't be on the main channel.

I don't fear for CBB just yet though after a successful launch with promising housemates.

Agreed. It's around 100k down on CBB11 for the launch and that series managed to average 2.8m, so 2.5m+ is certainly doable, especially since CBB11 is not considered the best. It would need to average around 2.2m-2.3m on overnights to do that.

When is Hostages scheduled for then? It's done for in the US, a 1.1 demo on CBS - awful! Channel 4 really bought a dud in this one, but I'd still like to see what it's like.

CBB's launch has been successful, you're right. In fact, did far better than the bar I set. Glad Channel 5 still have a big ratings puller in this. ITV I'm sure has never ever beaten them on the night CBB has launched. Channel 4's 8 Out Of 10 Cats was 'crushed' too: Didn't it get 2.3m a few nights ago, and it slumped right back to 1.5m last night!

We'll see. Bad Teacher I reckon will get 2.0m for Channel 4, and will do especially well at hitting CBB's potential audience numbers. Saturday's viewing will be interesting for CBB.