ITV4 beat five in primetime last night!

I am sure that even a three hour block of Ice Road Truckers repeats would have rated higher.

Hell, even any film for three hours, but The Postman?

Someone's job is to decide what goes where and they thought that The Postman would be best? A film that even one of the genre specific Sky Movie channels would have thought twice about.

NBC have announced their summer line-up which is dominated by British productions. It’s #1 rated show, America’s Got Talent (Syco TV), will kick off on June 23rd and 24th. I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here (Granada America) will begin on June 1st and be stripped Monday-Thursday at 8pm until the season finale on June 24th. Merlin (Shine/BBC) leads a number of original drama’s that will be shown over the summer. BBC Worldwide will also bring the “Great American Roadtrip”, an 8 part reality series.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/03/12...-to-june/14439

Brilliant night for BBC One really. A % share of over 31% in weekday primetime is superb... I wonder if it'll be higher today?

That's not the big question though... the biggest question is whether ITV can have four shows in a row under 1m! Can't happen... can it?

Also, the ratings for Wednesday night were good news for FOX. Lie To Me moved to 8pm and did well without an Idol lead-in, easily winning the hour in viewers (11.1m) and the demo (3.4/10 vs 2.1/7 for CBS). American Idol was well up on last week at 24.9 million.

Ben Silverman does seem to love British productions. I'm not sure how IAC will do over there as it flopped on ABC, Great American Roadtrip does sound awful but I wonder if it will appear on BBC Two or BBC Three if it is a success on NBC.

Back to ratings and BBC One had a fantastic night, The Big Red Nose Climb did very well and it deserved so and CRDTA did very too. ITV1 fared surprisenly well against the strong BBC One competition with both The Bill and Billy Connolly only slightly down. I hope ITV gives Billy Connolly another series as Journey to the Edge of the World was top notch.

BBC Two held steady with 1.4-1.5m throughout the night, TYY was down on Channel 4 and Red Riding was down from alst week which is a shame as it's very good while Five did very poorly with The Postman and whoever decided that film should dominate prime time should shot next to the person who scheduled Stylista. Five will be do better next week with UEFA Cup football and The Mentalist the week after which looking at the schedule will benefit from poor competition.

I'll take your bet that it aint going to be the case.

It was almost like a mini-Comic Relief night for BBC1 last night. Great but also surprising to see the Climb do so well and actually be the most watched show of the day! I only caught the last half hour but it looked really good and they all came across very well.

I don't think Corrie will make a difference. Compared to the actual length of Comic Relief, it's not on for that long. Last year CR easily won and I expect it to win again this year (perhaps with a reduced margin). Are soap weddings still a big event? Vera's death was the last time I can actually remember a soap being notably (a few million) above its usual ratings. With opposition from CR, I wouldn't be surprised if Corrie was down on what it usually gets.

Just brilliant for BBC1 last night with the Comic Relief show. The Kilimanjaro show really surprised me a good 2-3million above what I expected

Big surprise to see the Comic Relief shows performing so spectacularly.

It was clearly a good move to place them together - they got an EastEnders lead in, and in fairness, the Kilamanjaro one had recieved plenty of attention. No doubt having Chris Moyles talk about it every morning with his 7m+ listeners must have helped.

The big night tonight and the final of Lets Dance will make this quite a cheerful few days for BBC One.

Huge surprise at last nights ratings with BBC1 sweeping the board denting all the competition, although a 3 hour film repeat and yet ANOTHER TWO programmes about Darwin were hardly going to set the world alight!

Although still 8.7m in an 8pm slot on any day of the week is a fantastic rating and should clear 9m when the officials come out safely placing it inside the top 10 for a while.

ITV1 held up OK with Countrywise starting decently, but The Bill seems to have lost its way a bit over the past few weeks with stupid scheduling. With the 9pm slot being much more competitive I can see low 4m figures for a lot of the time from now on.

CH4 were also dented quite a bit, but multichannels as well as BBC1 seemed to gain with LIVING, ITV4 and E4 getting in on the big ratings.

Days like last night just prove you can never accurately predict ratings and tonights ratings should prove very interesting, especially the 9pm hour....

How do people think tonights News at Ten will rate? I think its going to be appalling and potentially the worst rated News at Ten ever because of the lead in and because it is up against Comic Relief TOTP (which will obviously be promoted on BBC1) and BBC News at Ten.

Good figures last night also, ITV held up surprisingly well. I expected the BBC to dominate the ratings last night and I expected some of the other channels to collapse.

Looking at the schedules for the next two weeks and BBC One has some odd scheduling with a documentary on Cleopatra on Monday and The Real Swiss Family Robinson which sounds like a flop from the get go.

Interestingly, both BBC Two and Five have scheduled strong competition against The Apprentice with Alan Whicker's Journey of a Lifetime and Five has A Cure for the Treeman which did very well last year.

That is on a Friday... which is rather peculiar because I'm almost certain I had QI and Not Going Out as the last in the series on that day. The BSI strikes again. Also on Friday 27th, there's a one off at 20:30:


Sounds like a flop.... the presenter's shows have flopped and will turn people off.

This is also definitely gonna flop:


Why so much crap? Seriously.

I can't see CR TOTP rating all too well. My 5.3m prediction seems ludicrous now; in hindsight I think 4.5m tops, more likely to be in the high 3s or low 4s though.

The BBC were obviously expecting the CR single (Saturdays) would make it to #1 but instead that Flo Rida garbage pipped it to the post, sort of making the whole CR special redundant.

Another celebrity edition of UC would rate better I think. Perhaps even an Eggheads special would have been worth a shot?

Regarding scheduling it looks almost as if BBC1 has brought out all their crap that week, just so The Apprentice can shine out.

Monday-L&O should continue with a solid 6m ish with more weak competition from BBC1. Monday seems the filler night lately.

Wednesday-Apprentice should start strongly with around 6/7m I would have thought, but other terrestrials are putting up stronger competition this year and by the looks of things it looks like a new Taggart on ITV1.

Thursday-The opening episode of The Mentalist couldn't be in a better slot imo. THere are FOUR factual shows on the main four terrestrials which as we saw a few weeks ago (I think it was on a Thursday aswell) almost cancel each other out. With just one drama airing I can see The Mentalist holding 3/4m for its first episode. The Truth About Beauty will flop under 3m for sure.

Friday-BBC1 really should capitalise on poor competition from ITV1 in the 9pm slot and maybe it would be better for My Family, however after seeing BBC1 can manage 9m in the Thursday 8pm slot My Family may actually do alright.

I think it would be worth scrapping 'The Truth About Beauty' from the ITV1 schedules, and billing it on a Monday night at 9pm on ITV2 - it's not the right image ITV want - they're not going in that direction for one thing.

ITV want their sports figures to improve - well - maybe they should be doing some other programming about it. I know 'Clough' is a good start, but it's hidden away post-News at Ten.

On Thursday, we could have a two hour 'The Bill' to play catch-up on the episodes lost.

I feel ITV should save 'Clough', the ITV Sport documentary.

I definitely think ITV could do some football themed stuff during the week of 25th Anniversary of Hillsborough. Because it would be the week before an FA Cup Weekend as well, as well as 2 English teams playing in European competitions.

I don't know if this would work though, only a thought, so maybe some of ITV's documentaries (like Clough) can get higher figures

Tuesday
7:30pm Champions League
Wednesday
7:30pm Coronation Street (hour)
8:30pm Hillsborough (the documentary)
Thursday
7:30pm UEFA Cup Live
Friday
9:00pm Taggart [the 'football' themed episode]
Saturday
5:15pm FA Cup
Sunday
3:45pm FA Cup

12th March 2009
USA Overnight Ratings

Network - Show - 18-49 Rating - 18-34 Rating - Total Audience

Shows are ranked by their 18-49 rating

8.00pm:
CBS - Survivor.................4.1/12.....2.2/7.......12.89m
FOX - Bones....................2.8/8.......2.2/7.........9.55m
ABC - Ugly Betty..............2.1/6.......1.9/6.........7.21m
NBC - My Name Is Earl.....1.7/5.......1.3/5.........4.41m
CW - Smallville.................1.6/5.......1.6/5.........3.72m
8.30pm:
NBC - Kath & Kim.............1.7/5.......1.6/5..........4.00m

9.00pm:
ABC - Greys Anatomy.......5.0/12.....4.9/13......13.54m
CBS - CSI.........................4.2/10.....2.5/7........16.96m
NBC - The Office...............4.0/10.....4.4/13........7.51m
FOX - Hell's Kitchen..........3.5/9.......3.2/9..........7.77m
CW - Supernatural...........1.1/3.......1.2/3..........2.84m
9.30pm:
NBC - 30 Rock...................3.3/8......3.8/9...........6.41m

10.00pm:
NBC - ER...........................3.9/11.....2.8/8.........10.71m
ABC - Private Practice.......3.5/9.......3.2/9...........9.07m
CBS - Eleventh Hour.........2.8/7.......2.2/6.........11.78m

NETWORKS:
CBS - 3.7/10 & 2.4/7 & 13.88m
ABC - 3.5/9 & 3.3/10 & 9.94m
FOX - 3.2/8 & 2.7/8 & 8.66m
NBC - 3.1/8 & 2.7/8 & 7.29m
CW - 1.4/4 & 1.4/4 & 3.28m

Just the one repeat last night, My Name Is Earl at 8pm on NBC.
As you can see, Thursdays are really close in the 18-49 demo between the big 4.
ER got a boost from a surprise return from George Clooney.
Eleventh Hour won 10pm in viewers but came last in both demo's.

I can't see The Mentalist pulling in 3-4m TBH even with poor competiton. I expect it will do 2m+ though with BBC One winning the slot. I think Five missed out on a oppurtunity by not scheduling after the final Grissom episode.

With poor competition from both BBC One and ITV1 on Fridays, I can see Five and Channel 4 capitalising with boost for NCIS and Kitchen Nightmares.

Looking at the US ratings, everything looks really tight in the demos, CSI was down but still strong even after nine seasons. I think Eleventh Hour is a goner though. ABC did well with Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice while Bones seems to the underrrated gem on FOX coming second with 9m+ despite being away for three weeks.

sorry to ask but have you any ratings info for the new ABC monday show Castle? i heard it got a rubbish write up and having just subjected myself to it i can see why.

News from ITV Press Office:
- Piers Morgan's Life Stories looks like it'll be back on March 29th with no episode of March 22nd due to a "Lewis" episode

Not much else from there yet, although DigiGuide should update shortly to give us provisional schedules for March 28th and 29th.

From tvbythenumbers:

Sky did indeed show The Postman over (and over and over) again on their channels until about a month ago.

You are right that it is a truly dire movie, though - one of the most boring ever made, IMHO. Five presumably got it in a package with a range of other movies, but giving it three hours in prime-time was asking for the raspberry from the viewers which they got.

Fantastic for BBC1 last night and ITV1 was clearly dented with The Bill being down on its usual figure. It certainly bodes well for BBC1's viewing output tonight. I think Corrie will be down and Comic Relief will get the big figures. It's a shame that Corrie scheduled 'a big event' as they've promoted it on Comic Relief night. I'm sure if it aired next week instead it would get 10 - 11 million viewers. Tonight, I can only see it getting 7-8 million viewers.

Jade's wedding did well too, peaking at 900,000 is impressive for Living.

BBC 1 did well, but we all knew it would! ITV held up Ok, C5 was terrible!!