WWE must make good money off Wrestlemania as it's the same sort of amount that PPV boxing charges.

I really hope that WR bounces back tonight, it was fantastic. It shouldn't have too many problems, as I can't see the football, proving too popular.

It's really strange how you seem to take delight from the misfortune of a commercial company. Its not normal.

UEFA are delighted with the success ITV has made of the Champions League. The CL is all about advertising and would die on the BBC.

It's a shame ITV doesn't have billions of pounds of taxpayers' cash to cushion itself during the recession. Money to waste on everything from tinpot local radio stations to Hole in the Wall to plugging U2

Not to turn this into the licensing thread, but I think radio and the Internet is the BBC's strengths. There is enough choice on TV for the BBC channels not to exist IMO. But with radio the BBC have the five best stations around and their local radio is exemplary (sp?) while their website is one of the the best around for news and views, and it would be shame to lose it.

Worth noting also, Ecclestone was pleased with ITV1's coverage of the F1. Indeed, if the channel hadn't put all it's eggs in one basket regarding sport funding, I'm sure he would've been happy to extend the deal further.

Back to the ratings...great night for the Champions League on ITV1. I think in regards of the FA Cup matches they need more Sunday afternoon matches instead of Saturday evening (maybe a double header, like Sky, with Sunday lunchtime and afternoon games). There is less competition from BBC1 then, and people are used to watching matches on Sky then so it's becoming a usual football slot. Saturday evening is usually occupied by a Setanta Premiership match which achieves less viewers. The England matches will do a steady income for the channel IMO, they have no need to become concerned about that.

Everything else seemed to be it by the football yesterday - Mistresses was down by not to a worrying amount. Holby is becoming steady at 8pm, and again should get a bounce back next week. EastEnders showed what it can do without an Emmerdale clash, but I expect tomorrow's episode to be lower when the clash returns.

I agree.It should never of been moved to Wednesday nights.

Long term, the move of Waterloo Road could be good. The Bill's departure from the 8pm slot will free up competition, especially as ITV are likely to use Wednesday as a 'filler' night outside football weeks.

Admittedly it will be interested to see how Waterloo Road'll compete with the football. Tonight may not be a fantastic guide as a FA Cup replay against two 'lesser' sides won't be such a pull as a Champions League match between two of Europe's giants.

Yeah, damn the BBC for providing a local service. Deregionalisation is clearly the way forward as ITV and Global Radio have demonstrated so successfully by sucking the heart out of their respective portfolios.

Come on, get a grip. ITV getting their hands on licence fee cash would be a disaster. They are only in the situation they are in now due to complacency, doing so would simply make matters worse and quite frankly I wouldn't trust them with my cash!

Yeah, they might spend money on flying people to Argentina to fall in water and trying to fit themselves through holes...

Agree on the local issue though.

There's no clash tomorrow. It's the Krypton Factor on ITV1.

Oh damn, I'd forgotten about that. Thanks.

Next week is The Krypton Factor final, and the week after is CL football on the Tuesday...are they going to try and catch up with Emmerdale by having an extra hour long somewhere, or just let it slide?

I don't think they'll catch up. After watching this weeks episodes far, its obvious no hour long episode was planned for this week. I'm sure there were occasions (possibly one or two?) last year when there wasn't an hour long.

EDIT- in fact there was several ocassion when Emmerdale did not have an hour special. Don't hold me to it, but there was at least 4 weeks without an hour special with no eps to make up the missing episodes.

With regard to the CL, there is an unseen movement which says the Beeb will never get the CL rights presumably for commercial reasons (though whether that is "fair" in a bidding process is another story).
The Beeb did actually outbid ITV when Greg Dyke was at the helm, but the nod still went to the commercial channel. Maybe financial constraints will have an effect at some point but I still find it hard to see the CL on the BBC. The FA Cup loss was hugely disappointing and a big mistake-especially as they were outmanoeuvered by their old boss.

I think it'd do better on Sunday nights in Piers Morgan's current slot, there seems to be an appetite for entertainment shows there, as it's usually filled with news, culture & PSB programming from BBC1 and ITV.

I think the last two wreslemania events have grossed nearly 50 million from the purchases (the PPV companies take half) and just over 10 million in ticket sales.Not bad for a predetermined sport.Even more impressive when take into account the amount of wrestling on subscription based TV (about 8 hours per week).

Always surprises me that FOX haven't made a bigger attempt to show some pro wrestling.

Yes, I think you're dead right, as it will improve Sunday's dire share.

Personally, I feel Saturday daytime needs a shake-up, and with ITV's investment into sport, they need to give it a platform. At present, ITV football seems bland and lifeless.

We could have a real treat of sport on a Saturday afternoon if ITV bring back 'World of Sport' to fill the Grandstand vacuum. It was always a much loved show with more charm than BBC's flagship sport show, and with Grandstand gone, it will be given a chance to really develop an audience.

The sports covered should be primarily:-

- Rugby (Guinness Premiership)
- Darts (a round-up of ITV4's darts stuff)
- Football (highlights from Champions League/FA Cup midweek with Des Lynam, and quick analysis on the afternoon games)

It would give ITV an afternoon schedule of:-

12:00pm Weekend News
12:15pm The Big Match Live (FA Cup) / Bond film
2:30pm World of Sport
5:30pm Weekend News, Weather & Sport
5:45pm Regional News/Sports round-up

And then at 6pm will start with all of ITV's normal Saturday night programming.

I could see a really solid viewership in that schedule, but the problem is, it would probably take time. ITV's Saturday viewing is going in the other direction at the moment, and even if it's primetime shares are getting 32% (on rare occasions), it's all day shares dip to under 20%.

Rasslin' is seen as very low brow. Back in UPN days Smackdown's audience had the lowest average income of any network show in America. Dunno if that still holds true, but it was not an attractive prospect to advertisers. This is also the reason Raw sometimes got bumped for tennis etc, even though Raw got many more viewers. Also that one million buys for WM is worldwide, not just the USA, it includes many buys from Sky box office, at 15 quid. 'Mania does about 650k buys in USA/Canada, I believe, although that's still an impressive figure when considering, as mentioned, it's 64.95 dollars for the HD version.

The BBC are bringing back both Criminal Justice and Five Days according to Broadcast.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/2...l_justice.html

Criminal Justice will air later this year, with five days next year and they will keep the same format of being stripped across five consecutive days.

Still waiting for them to repeat the original Criminal Justice - missed it when it was first on and cba to get the DVD.

Channel 4
Grand Designs 4.2m 17.5% (another 0.2m on +1)
Desperate Housewives 2.3m 12.9% (another 0.1m on +1)

BBC One
Nature's Great Events 3.7m 15.7%

ITV1
FA Cup Middlesborough West Ham 3.2m 13.6%

BBC Two
The Rise of the Superchef 1.9m 7.8%

Five
Minder 1.5m 6.4%

source: brandrepublic

Interesting move - it's good that they have the original writers in place too.

I'm sure that Five Days was recommissioned after it's initial run, but we've never seen anything since. I suppose this move is maybe after the poor performance from the Hunter pilot that was on earlier in the year.

Decent return figures for Desperate Housewives... It was a good episode too!!

Ouch, ah well, not as bad as it could have been

Some more from DS:

BBC1: WR 4.31m (17.8%)
BBC2: MC 4.3m (17.7%)
BBC4: Caravans 580k (2.7%)

K

beat Sky Sports anyway

Would always expect an FTA channel to beat Sky Sports though especially when the Sky football audience would be heavily split across all the matches last night.

I personally watched Sporting - Bayern!