Good to see Waterloo Road back over 4 million again

Also Desperate Housewives' rating is good for its return, though the first looks starting again from this Sunday will mean the figure for the next episode next Wednesday will probably be down.

How strange. I was actually just thinking if the BBC would show a tribute, but I thought tonight would be too soon. Good decision made though by the BBC as she was a huge star on their number one show for 20 years. I agree-6m is easily possible. Interesting battle now against the Masterchef final. The Bill is likely to suffer quite a bit.

Desperate Housewives did really well! Better then Heroes

Glad waterloo road did a bit better, was a very good episode!

One of the other things BBC1 showed opposite Heartbeat was a one-off show starring Ronnie Corbett, which was supposed to be the first of a series of entertainment specials, but they never made another one. Much like the BBC Hall of Fame in that regard.

I'd forgotten about those. Who was the only person to make it into the Hall of Fame?

Don't they have some tribute programmes already made for some of the older big name stars just in case? And, of course, we've known about the seriousness of Wendy's illness for some time.


It was Barbara Windsor

There's a few clips on the website of the actors saying stuff today (Adam Woodyatt, June Brown etc) which they'll probably insert into the programme.

Wednesday 25th February 2009
USA Overnight Ratings

(Network - Show......Audience......18-49 Rating/Share.......18-34 Rating/Share)

8.00pm:
FOX – American Idol.................23.68m......8.5/23......6.7/21
NBC – The Biggest Loser..........8.73m........3.3/9........2.8/9
CBS – The Old Adventures........5.83m........1.5/4........0.9/3
ABC – Lost................................4.97m........1.7/5........1.4/5
8.30pm:
CBS – Gary Unmarried...............5.99m.......1.7/4........1.0/3

9.00pm:
FOX – American Idol................24.82m........9.4/23.......7.7/21
CBS – Criminal Minds...............13.98m........3.4/8.........2.0/5
ABC – Lost.................................9.82m.......4.4/11.......4.1/11
NBC – Life..................................4.87m.......1.7/4.........1.3/4

10.00pm:
CBS – CSI:NY...........................12.69m.........3.2/9.........2.0/6
NBC – Law and Order................5.71m.........1.7/5.........1.3/4
ABC – Life On Mars....................5.55m.........2.0/6..........1.7/5

NETWORKS:
FOX – 24.25m & 8.9/23 & 7.2/21
CBS – 10.86m & 2.7/7 & 1.6/5
ABC – 6.78m & 2.7/7 & 2.4/7
NBC – 6.43m & 2.2/6 & 1.7/5

Repeats on CBS and ABC in the 8pm hour. Law and Order at 10pm on NBC was a repeat as well.
The CW was all repeats again.
American Idol averaged over 24m viewers, #1 show of the night and the week with its usual ease.
The Biggest Loser was out its usual slot, being moved from Tuesdays. It held up pretty well.
American Idol results air tonight at 8pm against Survivor.

Good. It's much better than Heroes.

American Idol dominated as usual although ABC and CBS held up okay against it, The Biggest Loser faring well against Idol does suggest that they could split it into two one hour episodes a week rather than one two hour episode a week in the future to accomadate the scheduling changes.

CBS do have a strong 9-11pm lineup but the sitcoms in the 8pm hour are holding them back.

A little bit more data from tvbythenumbers...

CBS is the only one of the big 4 to post a year-on-year ratings increase. At this stage, comparisons become a bit skewed because this is when the writers strike last year was really hitting.

CBS - Up 7.5% among all viewers, 3.2% among adults 18-49 and 2.3% among adults 18-34.

ABC - Down 6.3% among all viewers, 7.2% among adults 18-49 and just 2.5% down among 18-34's.

FOX - Down 10.8% among all viewers, 12.8% among adults 18-49 and a rather steep decline of 14.2% among the 18-34's.

NBC - Down 12.5% among all viewers, 13.2% among adults 18-49 and 11.5% among adults 18-34.

If you thought some of those declines were bad... The CW is off by 25% in terms of total viewers! Fortunately for them, it's "just" 10% down in its target 18-34's.

Cheers for this. American Idol dominating the night as usual. Do you know how this year's ratings compare to last year's? I don't think the 4th judge has made much impact to be honest; nothing compared to Cheryl Cole on our X Factor.

UK ratings-wise, the FA Cup had tough competition from the Champions League on Sky Sports, but 3.2m is still low. Quite embarassing that the coverage peaked before the actual match started.

Also, looks like Demons has been axed by ITV - no surprise there.

Down 8% overall.
Down 14% 18-49's.

So-so, really. Not as bad as things were looking from the launch episode, where the 18-49 decline was steeper and these numbers are broadly in line with network TV. Still nothing to be too pleased about, though.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...h_ratings.html

Yes that must be an extreme rarity and is another uncomfortable statistic to add to ITV's FA contract saga.

Thanks. Not so bad when you take the general decline in shows into account.

I wonder what Fox will do to the show after season 9, when it is rumoured that Cowell and co will leave. The show is a beast, but Cowell is a big part of it so I think it would see a big fall in the ratings. Yet it could probably still be America's top show so Fox would renew it.


I agree. But I just read what ITV think about the ratings:

It came third/fourth at various times in its slot, so dunno what the ITV Sport spokesman is on.

Note sure but a few lessons on calling a spade a spade wouldnt go amiss.

I think they need to make American Idol 10 unless the ratings plummet under the terms of the renewal contract. Not sure what happens with XF. Fuller's share expires at the end of 2010 (for new productions anyway, not sure about XF UK). What a battle it would be if X Factor went to another network and went head-to-head with American Idol!

Really, they need to go the way of XF. I'm watching on +1 just now and while I'm sure it's all more expensive than XF it just doesn't seem to be a big event. It's flat and I don't just mean the singing. As as thread on the AI forum says, nobody even dresses for the show anymore! Kara might be a decent judge of talent, but she has no role that Simon and Randy didn't already have covered. Cheryl was hired as a character and it worked alot better.

Enough people want to do down ITV without their own spokeman joining in.

The replays are a lottery. They did ok last night, considering everything. However I feel ITV really only wanted the England matches and wouldnt be too upset if someone took the FA Cup rights off them at a good price.

It's called spin. It's very rare for ITV to publicly acknowledge disappointing ratings.

Is it really a surprise though when you consider the match featured Middlesbrough? They're not a glamour side are they. Still that is low and I wonder how true the story in The Mail was about ITV wanting to sell their FA Cup rights if they could?

I thought FOX bought the rights to The X Factor when they renewed Cowell's contract though I wonder when those rights expired will Cowell shop it to the likes of ABC or NBC.

I totally agree the whole feeling of these weeks before the final 9 (?) just reaks of cheapness, and what a stupid idea it was to introduce these three weeks where they dump a load of potentially good singers after hearing a single song, totally destroying this series. The whole show makes TXF seem somewhat glamerous. I think there's only so many soloist under 30s you can take which is another advantage TXF has with the groups and the lack of age limit. I don't think Pop Idol would be drawing the numbers that TXF does if it had carried on the way it was going.

Another thing I must say is that the live band they're currently using is bloody awful and IMO their terrible acoustics are ruining a lot of the singers' voices.

All this said, it's still pulling in the numbers in America.

Yes, they did. Simon Fuller sued Simon Cowell and FOX came out of it worse than either of them! What I don't know is when do those rights expire. Do they expire with the rest of Cowell's contracts in 2010 or is it linked to American Idol and therefore 2011 before it can be shown? I suspect they'll have done it so as he can't show any X Factor series until 2011.


I actually quite like the change to the structure of the semi-final. Although it's not so much a change as reverting to the old way of doing things. For the past few years, it just dragged on with the same contestants for weeks on end and created this huge mid series lull from the semi-finals to the latter stages of the finals that often had me switching off. David Cook was good, but we'd been watching him singing live for about 15 weeks by the time he won!


The band will be fine on the finals. But they are "toned down" for this point and I think the best way to describe the sound is "weak". Which is really the problem with the semi-finals. They need to take off some of the shine so as the finals look more impressive by comparison. So you get the poor stage and quiet band.

I think the US could have done with XF being introduced in 2007 or 2008. I think PI still had life left in it in the UK, but XF provided a welcome revamp of the format. But while AI is in terminal decline, so long as it doesn't fall too sharply then there is no need to worry.

Actually, I'll give you that! I think the semis in whichever way they're done are the major weakness in the Idols format and is just another thing TXF does right by eliminating them.

Also adding the mentor element to the judges gives them a purpose, as otherwise (like in Idol) they're sitting around for 10 weeks giving gradually more useless comments as the poorer contestants get eliminated.

Cowell may have stolen the Idols format but my god did he improve it!

I think the only real threat to FOX and American Idol is CBS, NCIS and The Mentalist are the only real competition at the moment and if they increase in viewerships which is very likely for The Mentalist then we could some decline for Idol on Tuesdays.