As one of those unfortunate enough to suffer STV, the idea of an ITV takeover is hugely appealing. A few awful local productions, the worst football highlights show in the history of the world, crummy presentation of Scottish CL football matches, a terrible channel "look", Foyle's War instead of Everton vs Liverpool and a local news bulletin that is really just a crime update. While I appreciate Glasgow isn't Monaco, most news bulletins (particularly Mondays) seem to run as:

"In Easterhouse, one man was killed and two others injured in a knife attack"
"In the city centre, a 21 year old man was assaulted"
and on and on...

I agree, when I go up to Scotland to visit family I'm always shocked at how bad STV is. Like you say I always seem to miss something that I want to watch because Stv have opted out. The whole look and feel of STV is, in my opinion cheap and tacky. For example their 'Watch to Win' quiz which seems to be on every break- Last one I saw was - 'Name the Pub in Coronation street, is it Rovers Return, Woolpack, Queen Vic?' Call now only £1 plus your network charge.

An ITV takeover would be an improvement, I think

Oh and the five thirty show, and Carole Smilies Postcode lottery quiz :sleep:

Don't agree with that at all. If, say, BBC1 bought the rights to The X Factor and started showing it this August through to December, I don't for one minute think it would get 2m more viewers a week, and 16m for the final just because it was on BBC1. In fact, I bet it would get less because core BBC1 viewers don't go in for that sort of tosh, and ITV1's core audience wouldn't bother making the effort finding it on another network, but simply watch whatever ITV1 put out instead.

You know this from personal experience?

Of course there are going to be exceptions. I think Coronation Street and Emmerdale would rate less as well on BBC1. Along with The X Factor, I think they're the only three shows that would though. Every other show on ITV1 I think'd rate higher on BBC1.

Ah, "Watch To Win", how could I forget that! I think I even watched the XF final on ITV London to avoid it. Postcode Challenge looks like it was filmed in Carol's living room. Just a pointless show in every way.


Indeed, I expect the BBC core viewership would be totally stunned at the absence of Dale Winton or Graham Norton from their "high brow" Saturday night viewing experience. Perhaps if they made it classier? Dump Dermot and get in someone sophisticated to appeal to that clever BBC1 audience... Jonathan Ross could make the move to Saturday night TV?

At least standards aren't slipping on Question Time - no low-brow celebs making up the panel there, as you will see if you flick to BBC1 now...

But for most of the time from the mid 1950s until about 2001, the opposite was true - ITV1 seemed to just clean up on viewers for any old tripe no matter how good BBC1's rival offerings were.

The reason BBC1 has done so well in reversing that trend in the past 8 years or so is because of the vastly improved programming and schedules - coupled with ITV going to the dogs. If ITV showed quality programming that people wanted to watch, then the viewers would come and your theory would really be in tatters.

Will Young MP () is certainly making a valued contribution...

I think it's all down to perceived standards. In the public's eye ITV1 standards have lowered in recent years (and with such efforts as Rock Rivals, Celebrity Wrestling and Love Island, who can blame the public for thinking that?) - added to that the failure of drama in the winter of 07/08. Therefore they're weren't so willing to give ITV1 a try for new drama (though the Monday night thriller's are helping there). Whereas any old rubbish on BBC1 (Life of Riley and Traffic Cops??? Please ) get decent ratings.

Hmm.. The few that i have visited tend to be showing the magic "3"

Lost is brilliant at the moment.

I know I'm a few days late, but surprisingly, 90210 held its audience at 520,000 for its second week. E4 will be delighted with that especially as the show finished 7 minutes early which no doubt dragged down the audience. In the US, it had big losses in its second week.

Which makes the pitiful 80,000 that Smallville got at 9pm on Tuesday all the more concerning! But Shameless more than made up for it later with 730,000.

Hopefully Skins will do well tonight, it was a big improvement on last week... unfortunately last weeks poor show might result in a decline.

Also watched Piers Morgan On Monaco tonight, another good episode. Hopefully it will stick above 4m.

I'd rather we kept STV, but that people who could run a tv station took over.

I like the idea of having Scottish television, it just doesn't seem to work in practice.

Really enjoying these Piers Morgan shows. I hope they commission more.

90210 fits E4 like a glove and will hopefully the majority of the audience will stick with it. It's a lot better than most teen dramas that orginate from The CW.

The 9pm Smallville is a repeat as I think there is no new episodes at the moment but still a poor result.

The celebrity travelogues are working for ITV1 and have a feeling that Journey to the Edge of the World and Islands of Britain will do similar or better than Piers Morgan. I think they should consider showing Nature docs as they work well for BBC One, BBC Two and to an extent Five.

The better than expected reception for Minder should be encouraging for Five but I think they commission a crime drama next that is compatible with their US imports and get that audience to watch the homegrown drama.

Indeed, I'd still expect it to fall slightly across the series, but that's their 2 big shows (Skins and 90210) bucking the trend of losing viewers for their second episodes so it's an encouraging start.

I think that if Gossip Girl was on E4, it might be 100,000 higher. Although ITV2's adverts for it are excellent (using " Beautiful, Dirty, Rich" by Lady GaGa) and it seems to do well on ITV Player so it's not doing too bad anyway.

I was disappointed to see that ITV2 are getting Justin Lee Collins chatshow yet Alan Carr's show is going on C4. E4 could use some entertainment (which is what the "E" stands for) to complete a good line-up. They have fewer shows than ITV2, I think, but they are stronger (ITV2 does Celebair, E4 does Dead Set!).

E4 have tried reality shows in the past but they've never done that well, they should consider moving Shipwrecked to E4 and make it a flagship show and repeat it on T4 or even commission a new Project Catwalk which I imagine would resonate with their audience.

Shipwrecked would be a good idea in a primetime slot, particularly as T4 is being majorly scaled down. They don't want to be going back to the old attempts as you say, I remember the likes of "Fool Around With My Girlfriend" which is the kind of trashy stuff which I think they are best staying away from.

I suppose E4 gives hope to C4. It used to be just as dependent upon Big Brother, but now the BB spin-offs are below the slot averages and the live feed has been axed yet E4 is doing pretty well.

Thursday 5 February
BBC1
20.00- Life of Riley: 4.2m (17.2%)
20.30- The Green Green Grass: 3.9m (15.4%)
21.00- Hustle: 5.5m (22.2%)

BBC2
20.00- Masterchef: 4.4m (17.4%)
* 20.00-20.15: 3.7m (15.4%)
* 20.45-21.00: 5.0m (19.4%)
* 2008 slot average: 2.0m
* 2009 series average: 3.4m (14%)
* 2008 series average: 3.1m (12.7%)
21.00- Victorian Farm: 3.7m (14.9%)

ITV1
20.00- The Bill: 5.0m (20%)
21.00- Piers Morgan On...: 3.7m (15%)

C4
20.00- Ten Years Younger: 2.5m (10%) [+1: 248,000]
21.00- Killer In A Small Town: 1.9m (7.9%)

Five
20.00- Cowboy Builders: 1.8m (7%)
21.00- Soho Blues: 1.1m (4.6%)

Source: Broadcast

this is such a pointless argument especially when BBC1 shows such stunning, intelligent fare like Hole in the Wall, The One and Only, Just the Two of Us, celebrity showjumping etc etc

Life Of Riley is still doing well - will there be another series on the cards? Dissapointing for the Green Green Grass though. It seems that people slowly tune out of the 'comedy hour'.

Masterchef is doing brilliantly for BBC2 - they must be pleased. Piers Morgan dropped slightly, but it still did ok and offers a good alternative to Hustle.

From media guardian

The one show 6.1m
Eastenders 10m
Emmerdale 7.2m
BBC 10o'clock news 6.1m
ITV news at ten 2.9m

Smallville is a repeat... it usually gets around the same as 90210, which is good after 7 years!

in other news... Im notsurprised that Piers Morgan did worse then last week, it was boring compared to dubi, hopefully hollywood next week will be better

Good performance by The One Show - above 6m and just 1.1m behind Emmerdale.

From comments I've read in the past, am I right in thinking that The One Show's consolidated final figure is sometimes lower than its overnights? How does that happen?