TV Burp is not a tired format IMO. I just hope it's given a nice long break, so it's fresh again for a return.

I thought it was great last night as always.
Perhaps getting a bit too slapstick? Well, I don't care...

I think ITV have just treated the series badly, especially this year following the purchase of FA Cup football rights and The Colour of Money. It's on 6:15, 6:45, 7:15 some weeks. It works best with a lead in from You've Been Framed in a regular 7:15pm slot, and it should stay that way.

There's no need for ITV to even be considering commissioning new gameshows for Saturday night. I don't think there's an appetite for it. And The Colour of Money is such a tired format, with obvious flaws: It's Americanised with sob stories, all the viewer wants is a game format to follow. Deal or No Deal does this soppy stuff, but not to an X Factor extent.

Saturday nights just didn't need expansion: You've Been Framed and/or Harry Hill early evening, following into Primeval, Ant & Dec, Britain's Got Talent, Mr & Mrs, Beat the Star and then The X Factor season.

If anything, ITV really need to be investing in 9pm programmes on Saturday instead of filling them with movies that get sub 3 million viewers. ITV don't need to mess around with stuff before then, as 2008 was a year when after around March, Saturday's on ITV was a massive success.

ITV are missing a trick really, as they seem to think the only way they can succeed in programming is copying established BBC formats (or it seems like this sometimes).

I think they need to look at stuff that has recently gone from the BBC (Grandstand and Top of the Pops), and fill slots with programmes like that.

It would be good to have World of Sport on a Saturday afternoon combining all of ITV4's sports with all the football highlights from the week.
And ITV could risk a music show on Saturday nights at 9pm, of a similar style to Top of the Pops. I'd say a cross between TOTP and T4's music stuff?
A trial on ITV2?

Fair enough, but can you honestly say you feel as enthusiastic about it now as you did at the start of the current run in October?

Why did ITV axe Afterlife and Murder In Suburbia? That would have solved its Saturday night 9pm woes if you ask me.

As ever, people on here have been wrong about Colour of Money. It's holding it's audience and seems to be growing. The comments when it started were typically OTT about it probably being axed after 2 weeks etc.

Hardly a tired format when you then praise Mr+Mrs (which began in the 60s).

Dramas cost 4 times as much as an entertainment show and about 5 times as much as a factual show.

ITV1's budget has not risen with inflation over the past few years and so has effectively been cut, while the cost of making programmes has risen.

Now its seeing actual cuts, so more drama is just out of the question.

If they had a £2bn programme budget I'm sure they would have Murder in Suburbia on Saturday nights.

That's very true. I wonder how repeats of both programmes would rate? Would it be cheaper for ITV to show a repeat in the 9pm Saturday slot opposed to a new programme or a film?

Nearly!

According to DS:


K

I think Afterlife was right to end when it did tbh, as it felt like it was ending on a high, before it got tired.

As for Murder In Surburbia, I think the last series flopped with about 3.5m.

Most of it on expensive and massively-overbid football rights which bring in 4-6m viewers, and several million for Cowell Inc.


I think the Beeb would be quite happy to see them stay at ITV1 - and boost BBC1's Saturday night ratings!

I wonder if they'll lose out to a Total Wipeout repeat next weekend? I think they will.

Saturday 14th March Roundup
BBC One
16:45- Six Nations Rugby Union: Scotland v Ireland: 3.89m
19:15- Let’s Dance for Comic Relief: 7.9m (35.5%)
- peak: 8.6m
20:35- The National Lottery Draws: 5.79m (25.3%)
20:45- Casualty: 5.93m (27.1%)

BBC Two
20:00- Timewatch: 1.82m (7.9%)
21:00- The Lost World of Communism: 1.58m (7.5%)

ITV1
18:15- Harry Hill’s TV Burp: 5.11m (27%)
18:45- The Colour of Money: 4.09m (20.2%)
19:45- Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway: 5.17m (22.7%)
21:00- About A Boy: 2.27m (11.4%)

Channel 4
20:00- Grand Designs: 905,000 (3.1%)
21:00- I, Robot: 1.47m (7.6%)

Five
20:35- NCIS: 1.4m (6.3%)
21:35- CSI: New York: 2.45m (12.3%)
22:35- Law and Order: 1.25m (8.6%)

Primetime Shares
BBC One: 28.2%
ITV1: 16.9%
Five: 6.5%
Channel 4: 6% , +1: 0.5%
BBC Two: 6.2%

Source: DS

Amongst the far too many newspapers that my family buys, two manage to provide the complete schedule for next Saturday and they both say that TW is the new, missing last-in-the-series episode.

Which makes sense to me given a) its prime-time, slap-bang-in-the-middle-of-the-evening slot and b) it's the last weekend of the six-nations so BBC1 will be getting ready to start their spring Saturday shows.

Steering a little off topic for a while, but I don't think we've really discussed the impact on TV ratings of digital switchover.

One thing I hadn't appreciated until today is that when switchover comes, each region basically loses most of its terrestrial digital broadcasts for about a month - according to digital.uk all of the digital channels in my region, NW England, apart from the BBC Channels go off in early November and don't come back until early December this year. That seems to be the standard procedure whenever areas changeover. Some areas seem to be longer than a month.

I suppose it's logical that there will be a transition period whilst particular transmitters transfer their analogue transmissions over to digital, boosting existing digital broadcasts - but I didn't realise we actually stood to lose digital broadcasts and rely on analogue again for several weeks, and I suspect not all 4 analogue channels will be available at all times.

This will inevitably impact on ratings - boosting the BBC, I imagine - and it will be interesting to look out for this when more populated regions such as mine go off.

There has been good publicity for ages about "digital switchover" but I've heard nothing about "you won't be able to watch much for a month unless you have satellite/cable".

Good result for Let's Dance on a night of surprisingly low ratings. I wonder whether the 20 mins of padding dented the average figures? I thought it was a bit padded out, and with them heavily signposting that "we'll have a result in 20 minutes", did people start flipping? Be interesting to see a breakdown. It was a good peak figure, anyway.

That's quite decent for heavy documentaries on a Saturday night.

Sorry, me again...

Just spotted this on the DS Friday ratings report:


That's astonishing really if correct - I wonder how many shows in 2009 will beat a 51% AVERAGE - not peak - share?

Yeah, a fantastic figure. Programmes off the top of my head that could possibly get a 51% share or more are: The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent, Strictly Come Dancing, Doctor Who, EastEnders (on Xmas Day), Children in Need, Grand National. Hardly any.

BBC1's coverage of the 6 Nations was brutal today. 2 minute wrap up after the game, no post match interviews, no analysis. The should be stripped of the rights for their cack handed approach. Its interesting that the BBC cant get decent ratings for anything other than England matches. i seem to recall ITV getting better ratings for early RWC matches involving the Celtic nations.

All because BBC1 was desperate not to run a few minutes late tonight. So they sacrifice proper coverage of a key sports property to support their evening schedule.

Haven't they been doing that this year anyway, with the extended post-match coverage on the red button?

K

So should ITV be stripped off the FA Cup rights as well because they only had about 3 minutes of post-match analysis the other week?

At least the BBC did have some post-match analysis on the Red Button. I think ITV did have some on ITV.com, but it's not exactly that ideal is it? And people who did actually attempt to watch it on ITV.com said it was a headache making it all work.


The BBC have been bringing in decent ratings for non-England matches in the previous few weeks- dunno what happened last night.

RWC is a bigger event than the Six Nations. The matches are also in primetime, whereas hardly any Six Nations matches are. So it's hardly surprisingly that the RWC matches rated higher (according to your memory).

Isn't this young persons' slang for magnificent? Why are you complaining if you liked it so much?

I'm sure if a certain poster was being consistent, he would agree with me
There is rushed & then there is what the BBC did today. It was clear they hadn't budgeted for the 3 minutes overtime until the ball went dead. It just looked poor.

Anyway I just raise it to highlight that the BBC's sports coverage isn't always perfect. Seems like it never gets highlighted though, unlike a certain other channel

I'm guessing that ITV feel shows like A&D need to be finished by 9pm and so the schedule needs to start a bit earlier. Inevitably, that becomes a problem as we head into lighter evenings.

And I think they need gaps to be filled on the main schedule as well. Mainly a new format for Ant & Dec and a replacement for Demons.

As for post-9pm programming, I think ITV may be discouraged again by advertising regulations. If they have been broadcasting "primetime" since 5.45pm, they probably don't have much of an allowance left and so a film makes sense.


7%... not quite most of it. And at £7m a year for the top 2 shows on TV, Cowell looks like alarmingly good value compared to Jonathan Ross, don't you think? Even with declining ratings, A&D still look badly paid compared to JR.


Something tells me that in about a month, BBC1 would be quite keen to have A&D in the place of John Barrowman whose new show sounds stale and tired even before it has begun.


I don't. I'm sure one of us will be quoting this post in a weeks time!

The irony!

If it was all about ratings, then why did BBC1 spend 35 mins of primetime Saturday night talking rugby, thus reducing the average for the Scotland v Ireland coverage, and giving Let's Dance a poor lead in?

Not that Burp or Colour of Money seem to have benefited anyway...

Just proves they dont have a clue what they are doing.........

When the BBC air an FA Cup extra time tie with a channel promotion in the middle of it then we can talk George....

If you dont have anything constructive to add then why not sell your shares in ITV?

This is a ratings thread, not a BBC/ITV-bash thread, why not check the Broadcasting forum - it'll keep you busy all day long with that kind of talk.