Interesting developments for The Bill. It's a good move to cutdown to 1 episode in my opinon and make it more gritty. Should also help partsolve ITV's 9pm woes.

I think it paves way for Corrie to move to Thursdays now and also to cut that 1 hour Emmerdale episode back to 30 mins. I wouldn't be surprised if Thursdays turns out to be:

20:00 Emmerdale
20:30 Coronation Street
21:00 The Bill

Though, The Bill is as likely to go into the Tuesday 9pm slot.

why cut a show that gets over 5m in an 8pm slot for 2 hours, to a 9pm slot once a week! if its not broken then dont fix it!

The Bill moving to 9pm and once a week is good news for ITV1 as it solves the football problem when it moves to Wednesday and it benefit the BBC who will be able to get better ratings for the Thursday sitcoms and Waterloo Road. If it does move to Tuesdays, it'll definetly have a knock on effect on CSI and CSI: Miami which could potentially although lead to the US crime block being moved to another day.

The primary purpose isn't to fix The Bill though, but to fix the schedule as a whole, which is in dire straits. It also solves the football issue.

Great move by ITV moving The Bill, there scheduling worries because of the new football night is getting solved

I can't help but think they want rid of the show (as reported in numerous times in the past) but obviously ditching those figures would be very unjustified.

In terms of freeing up the schedule it is a good move, although has some have already suggested I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if 8pm-9pm became the new soap block.

I also agree with the post saying News at Ten has to go. I think its only there for nostalgia, and although it is a very good bulletin it is in the way. 11pm would definitely be a good move, allowing them to try and get hold of the 16-34 year olds perhaps by putting imports on at 10pm or even if they showing interest in Big Brother again when the contract comes back up for renewal. (I had to mention BB somewhere didn't I? )

The figures you have provided are incomplete and only tell half the story seeing as you haven't been able to obtain the figures for the lower rated episodes. Needless to say I can't see anything to suggest numbers are "worryingly down" perhaps a little but nothing major, and as I have pointed out several times previously, at least some of the lost viewers could have been easily recouped elsewhere.


That's an overnight figure. Not saying it will jump massively in the officials, but still, we shouldn't really compare officials with overnights.


Really? You seem to have built up a back catalogue of posts which could be deemed as anti-Five. I wouldn't describe my posts as protective as such, rather stating the obvious. Your posts on the other hand seem to be rather exaggerative, particularly when it comes to anything remotely bad about Five; maybe it's just for effect, I don't know, but when you make these remarks you should be prepared to back them up. Based on the incomplete data you have provided I am willing to accept there has been a small decline since before Christmas, but I see nothing to support the view that the extent of the decline is big enough to warrant worry.

Neighbours continues to be one of Five's best performing programmes; an absolute asset to both Five and Fiver without question, and I believe has a long and bright future ahead of itself on UK screens.

I think Waterloo Road has been very dissapointing so far this season...it just seems so ludicrous having a school run like that (it seems like anyone can walk in off the street and just wonder around the corridors of that school no questions asked)...it's the Bonekickers of the educational drama series..no wonder it seems to be dropping a little in the ratings..I just can't take it seriously!!

Wednesday 21st January

ABC
19:00 ABC News 1,073,000
19:30 The 7.30 Report 815,000
20:00 My Family 695,000

Seven
18:00 Seven News 1,449,000
18:30 Today Tonight 1,281,000
19:00 Home and Away 1,170,000
19:30 Australian Open 2009 Day 3 Night Session 1,435,000
22:30 Australian Open 2009 Day 3 Late Night Session 827,000 (finish 00:30)

Nine
18:00 Nine News 1,203,000
18:30 A Current Affair 1,134,000
19:00 Temptation 785,000
19:30 10 to 1 796,000
20:00 New Adventures of Old Christine 713,000
20:30 CSI: Miami (R) 903,000
21:30 ER 546,000

Ten
17:00 Ten News at Five 896,000
18:00 The Simpsons (R) 562,000
18:30 Neighbours 693,000
19:00 Friends (R) 690,000
19:30 The Simpsons (R) 562,000
20:00 Rules of Engagement (R) 732,000
20:30 House (R) 659,000
21:30 House (R) 686,000

SBS
19:30 Food Safari 467,000

Source: OzTam

The Australian Open did very well for Seven and increased a lot from the previous two days. Wonder who was playing to increase the ratings.

Both Neighbours and H&A seem a bit lower than usual.

I reckon The Bill would go down well once a week at 9pm (after all, that's exactly how it was shown in its original days before they 'soapified' it).
Soaps too, I think would be better between 8-9pm. Leaves space between 7 & 8 for a bit of light-entertainment. And the 10pm slot would be best for a decent U.S. drama or even a couple of half-hour sit-coms. I remember years ago watching 'Soap' around that time of night, followed by something like 'The Golden Girls'. There's nothing like that now...actually, I wouldn't mind if they repeated some of those classic shows (wouldn't that be cheaper?).

I presume The Bill is going to go on a few week/month hiatus and then come back? I presume it'll be on Thursdays @ 21:00. I think this is quite risky... doing that the relaunch in the post-watershed slot could tank.

A rather unfortunate choice of words. It was PSB at its finest according to todays Telegraph. Should win quite a few awards. As long as ITV has a PSB role it needs to do this type of programme. None of the previous Stockwell programmes covered the event in the manner ITV did last night.

I agree, it was a an amazing programme, Noway did it deserve the ratings it got.

I don't think they should have a hiatus, and I don't think they need it. In the final week of Wednesday and Thursday at 8pm promote the change heavily, then just make the switch seamless. Not removing it from the screens means that people don't have time to get put of the habit of watching it.

I like the idea of the soap block at 8, but that all depends on BBC1 agreeing to move EastEnders to 7.30pm on Monday and Friday, which is possible. Certainly, they'd like to air Friday's episodes at an earlier time, before people start going out. Also, The Bill's move takes some pressure off Waterloo Road, though 4m is not impressive really. Though personally I think the show has taken a downturn this series thanks to a psychotic child. Seems like a quick fix to a long term issue TBH. Secret Life of Elephants performed well in the 9pm slot, though I do feel sorry for Stockwell. When you consider Rock Rivals defeated it in the same slot during the same time of year (IIRC ) that's sad. Makes you wonder what ITV can do regarding documentaries now.

Five and Channel 4'll be delighted with their output. Teh Contractor did well with 2m+, but Channel 4 will be smelling success after Big Chef Takes on Little Chef was only narrowly pipped at 9pm and Celebrity Big Brother claimed 3m at 10pm. Maybe a look at that late slot for the summer series as it seems to work slightly better?

Bang on the money George. The programme was of high quality, bit of a shame this wasn't reflected in the ratings but there you go.

Fingers crossed for Skins to get good ratings tomorrow. It's a huge change for a show to do what they have and I hope it pays off for them. I thought it worked quite well.

Given up any hope for BB ratings. The final ratings are going to be really really bad.

It wasn't reflected because ITV can't schedule it in the 10pm hour, a perfect hour for it to be scheduled. It needed to grab onto a male audience.

Say News at Ten could be shifted, I would've simply scheduled it after a football match on a Tuesday night:-

7:00pm Emmerdale
7:30pm Champions League Live
10:00pm Stockwell
11:00pm The Late News

And then show the Champions League Highlights in full on Wednesday night at 10pm.

Furthermore, it was against TWO other acclaimed factual series:-

A) Secret Life of Elephants
B) Big Chef Takes on Little Chef

ITV need to realise there is a limited factual market out there, and if ITV thought about it, they could've sneaked it into the Monday night thrillers and got around 5 million viewers for it.

It was critically acclaimed and should be repeated again.

I expect between 0.6-0.8m which would be very good for E4, what did the series avergae last year?

Seen ITV3 promoting Ladies of Letters which looks pretty good and should bring in a decent audience if scheduled after one of their higher rated repeats.

Bad news moving The Bill IMO.

As a fan of the show i think this is a very risky move indeed. And why get rid of one episode, when the show regularly gets 5million viewers in the 8pm slot twice a week?!

I feel ITV could well kill of this show now. I know ITV is in a bit of a mess, but now they need to replace The Bill with shows in those slots that can attract the same numbers. And as we know, ITV have had a lot of ratings turkeys in the past few years.

It's not the type of programme that ITV should be seeking to exploit to gain an extra few million viewers. It was tackling adifficult subject, and had far more merit than the Little Chef show or a documentary about some elephants.

It didn't get the ratings it deserved but so be it.

3 out of 3 there then...



I said last week that Stockwell sounded like the usual boring leftie tripe aimed at Guardian readers and best played out in a ghetto slot on pinko Channel 4.

It was clearly never going to appeal to a mainstream audience, but I thought with all the press previews and the fact that it was on ITV1 at 9pm would gain it some default viewers anyway, it would get something beginning with a 2.

To pull only 1.4m is disastrous - surely ITV's worst peak time audience since the 1950s when a much smaller proportion of the country actually had tellies.

It's a risky move, yes, but it's about time ITV took some risks if you ask me.

I don't think anybody here is a big fan of the current schedule. In fact most people believe ITV should be cutting back on the soaps that dominate ITV1 pre-watershed.

Financial reasons probably - ITV is on its arse and on the verge of going bust?

Cutbacks to Corrie or Emmerdale next?

I don't know exactly, but I think it was in that range as it fell a bit from its first year. Hopefully it will get that for tonights show, it might lose some next week (as it is, in some ways, a new show) but I think E4 would give it another year if it sticks above 550,000.

The other thing that I got from tonights Skins... E4 would really really really really like people to watch 90210 on Monday!