What I do find annoying is 2 hours back to back of these documentaries. I think they aren't bad documentaries (especially Medics at War) but 2 hours is too much and reminds me of a Discovery schedule.

ITV is trying to be LWT with big entertainment at the weekend, crime thrillers on Mondays, Discovery on Tuesdays, Sky Sports on Wednesday, BBC1 on Thursdays & Fridays. It just seems to be too themed for a mixed genre channel.

Yes, and I've always been a fan of mixing it up a bit, with a theme going occasionally, for example the 'Monday Night Thriller' theme.

But how can you promote documentaries on Tuesday nights if you have Champions League being filled...I would've filled the nights with films or two part dramas continuing on from Monday.

When The Bill goes to one hour 9pm after September, I do think it should be split into half an hour episodes on Thursday & Friday, as I think an hour is too much to take for this kind of show at 9pm:-

Thursday
8:00pm Send In The Dogs
9:00pm The Bill
9:30pm Multiple Personality Disorder

Friday
8:00pm Tonight
8:30pm Live at the South Bank
9:00pm The Bill
9:30pm Al Murray's Happy Hour or Headcases

something along those lines.

Back to ratings, it's a shame there's nothing to watch on Tuesday nights, for me anyway, on the terrestrials from 9pm.

Looks like Moving Wallpaper will take the Friday 9pm slot in a couple of weeks:

I wonder what they originally had planned for the 9pm Friday slot.

Quote from Broadcast :

ITV is facing a mad rush to promote the upcoming series of Moving Wallpaper after schedulers brought forward its launch date from June to 27 February.
Initially the series was billed in ITV's Winter/Spring schedule, and was earmarked for launch in June.

But today ITV confirmed that the second series of the comedy would premiere in just over two weeks at 9pm on ITV1.

Strange that they've brought it forward. A sign of confidence in the series, or no confidence ?

So it's a Friday comedy double bill, it's going to need some good promotion I feel :

21:00 Moving Wallpaper
21:30 Al Murray's Multiple Personality Disorder

So what's the alternative? Advertising?? I can't imagine anything worse.

Matthew Wright and Natasha Kaplinsky rumoured to be considered for Five's 'The One Show' rival:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...Kaplinsky.html

[groan at having to link an article on that paper's website]

Funny as I was only saying here recently that Wrighty was underused by Five and it was about time they gave him a meatier project. I imagine though this could mean the end of The Wright Stuff if it happens?

Could be a load of tosh but as a pairing I think they would work quite well, and ratings wise it couldn't do no worse than Five's 7pm news.

I think if Wright does leave The Wright Stuff, they could replace him with Richard Bacon who I thought was a good replacement when he was away on holidays or if neither Wright or Kaplinsky want to do it they always could hire Richard and Judy.

Hang on a minute-Moving Wallpaper to launch in just over 2 weeks in the same slot it faced last year where it dropped below 2m??!! What the hell are ITV thinking of exactly? Also Murray flopped last year at 10pm, why is he going to do any better at 9.30pm? Also surely these 2 comedies would appeal to the same audience as BBC1. ITV have a strong opportunity to regain back Fridays, but they seem to have just ruined it! It is strange that ITV have brought it forward. Also talking of promotion I can't see that any has started yet for Law & Order which is very susprising considering the lengh of the series, high profile stars, the slot and the fact it's starting in less than 2 weeks!

ITV Tuesdays don't seem to get any better and I don't think any factual stuff that would air in those slots will perform well now-even Send In The Dogs which brought in over 4m last year I don't think would manage 3m, purely because of the reputation the slots now have and many of the documentaries seem the same, just with different names! ITV need to stop with them and rebrand them much like the Monday Night Thriller campaign, as ITV Drama was starting to become a damaged brand last year, but they've managed to revive it.

Regarding the move of Matthew Wright possibly presenting the new show at 7pm does anyone think the next step will be axing The Wright Stuff to save money but to keep Matthew Wright happy? FIVE have already axed Trisha, so could The Wright Stuff go along with it?!

And finally the other big news point of the day regarding John Nettles leaving Midsomer! When I first heard the story it sounded like ITV had axed it, which wouldn't surprise me considering the last 2 weeks, but I'm glad ITV are continuing with it, butt hey will have to be careful as to who they replace in the lead role.

The crime dramas were working really well on Fridays and I can see MW and Al Murray doing 2-3m at best, the ones who will benefits will be BBC One and Five who may see a boost for NCIS from the T&R audience.

Midsomer Murder has done well for ITV1 but I think once John Nettles leave they should end it rather than let it carry on with a new lead.

The changes at Five are interesting but TBH I think there for the better, getting rid of the news updates will please a lot of people as tend to ruin the flow of EPGs and splitting films into two halves.

Anyone got the ratings from yesterday, mainly the soaps?

Tuesday 10th February Overnights
BBC One
21.00- New Tricks: 4.2m (17.8%)
22.00- BBC News at Ten: 4.9m
22.35- Make Me…Smart: 2.3m

BBC Two
21.00- Horizon: 2.5m (10.8%)
22.00- The Culture Show: 700,000
22.30- Newsnight: 900,000

ITV1
21.00- In The Line of Fire: 2.7m (11.7%)
22.00- News at Ten: 1.9m
22.35- Katy Brand's Big Ass Show: 700,000

Channel 4
20.00- Supersize v Superskinny: 2.4m (14%) , +1: 208,000
21.00- Boys and Girls Alone: 2.2m (9.3%) , +1: 164,000
22.00- Shameless: 2.66m [inc. +1]

Five
21.00- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: 3.0m (12.8%)

BBC Three
22.00- EastEnders: 1.26m

BBC Four
22.00- Mad Men: 252,000

E4 [inc. +1]
19.00- Hollyoaks: 850,000
21.00- Smallville: 200,000
22.00- Reaper: 170,000
23.00- Shameless: 750,000

Film4 [inc. +1]
18.45- Bride and Prejudice: 100,000
21.00- The Magdalene Sisters: 300,000

Fiver
18.30- Home and Away: 827,000 (4.4%) , +1: 18,000

ITV2
21.00- Coleen’s Real Women: 503,000 , +1: 119,000
22.00- Red Dragon: 378,000

ITV3
22.00- Ladies of Letters: 588,000 (3.3%)

More4 [inc. +1]
21.00- Come Dine with Me: 400,000
22.00- True Stories: 70,000

Sky1
21.00- Battlestar Galactica: 213,000 (1%)

All Day Shares
BBC One: 21.8%
ITV1: 16.6%
Channel 4 [inc. +1]: 9.0%
BBC Two: 8.5%
Five: 6.0%

Sources: Broadcast, Channel 4 Sales, Media Guardian

Official Top 10 most watched programmes for w/e 01/2/09
1 - 10.48m - Coronation Street (ITV1, Mon 20:30)
2 - 10.01m - Dancing on Ice (ITV1, Sun)
3 - 9.71m - EastEnders (BBC1, Mon)
4 - 8.20m - Wild at Heart (ITV1, Sun)
5 - 7.75m - Emmerdale (ITV1, Wed)
6 - 7.53m - Casualty (BBC1, Sat)
7 - 7.53m - The National Lottery - In It To Win It (BBC1, Sat)
8 - 7.11m - Unforgiven (ITV1, Mon)
9 - 7.08m - BBC News (BBC1, Sun)
10 - 6.54m - Lark Rise To Candelford (BBC1, Sun)

Source: BARB

Note: No multiple entries for programmes, including effectively the same programmes with different names (e.g. Dancing on Ice/Dancing on Ice Skate Off).

How does Out of the Blue perform on Fiver at 7.30PM?
What are Neighbours ratings at 7PM?

I want to know that too. . I wish DS would kindly produce these in their report.

Wow for Casualty nearly on a par with Emmerdale. Do we know what the increase from the overnights was?

Well, it's the Queen's favourite show, and a gem for ITV. I personally would have a gripping finale episode...with Barnaby dying.

And then another show, perhaps on Christmas Day, that determines who the next Inspector will be...all being hush hush...I don't know if that could ever happen?

Perhaps you could ask them via the "Contact Us" page. I think someone previously contacted them about the Home and Away ratings, and now DS nearly always report them.

Neighbours on Fiver probably gets abour 200k-300k. Wouldn't be surprised if Out of The Blue is around 50k, maybe even less.


Casualty increased 640,000 from its overnight rating. Emmerdale increased by 130,000 from the overnight rating DS reported.

Nice idea but my idea would be to have Joyce revealed to be the serial killer of Midsomer having framed someone over the years and Barnaby finding out.

But the more realistic prospect is for Barnaby to retire and leave Midsomer with Joyce with the final scene being the new inspector driving into the old house and coming out of his car and saying: 'What a nice place, what could possibly go wrong around here?'

January 2009 Monthly official ratings:

BBC1 - 20.7% (Jan 2008 - 21.8%) Change = Down 5%
ITV1 - 18.0% (Jan 2008 - 19.1%) Change = Down 6%
BBC2 - 8.0% (Jan 2008 - 8.3%) Change = Down 4%
C4 - 7.6% (Jan 2008 - 8.0%) Change = Down 5%
C4+1 - 0.8% (Jan 2008 - 0.6%) Change = Up 33%
Five - 4.8% (Jan 2008 - 4.9%) Change = Down 2%
Multichannel - 40.1% (Jan 2008 - 37.3%) Change = Up 8%

So all the terrestrial channels falling about the same, with Five falling the least. (Channel 4 has also only fallen 2% if you include C4+1).

The rise of C4+1 is possibly due to more people being aware of its existence and "thinking" of using it.

Multi-channel still growing strongly despite the increase in Digital penetration now levelling off (now likely to be approx 90% when OFCOM issues its report for 2008 Q4).

How does that get onto ITV1 with a rating like that??!! Seriously.

Interesting news today.

So, the Saturday 21st February schedules didn't significantly change

ITV1

15:50 Film : Scooby Doo
17:30 ITV News
17:45 New You've Been Framed
18:15 Harry Hill's TV Burp
18:45 The Colour of Money
19:45 Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway
21:00 Film: The Bourne Identity

against BBC One's

16:30 Final Score
17:25 BBC News
17:45 Total Wipeout
18:40 Let's Dance for Comic Relief
20:00 The National Lottery Draw
20:10 Casualty
21:00 The Old Guys
21:30 Outtake TV

Looks like the key battleground will be the two new shows, The Colour of Money vs Let's Dance for Comic Relief.

ITV's schedule ending early again, with The Bourne Identity going out yet again, films don't really rate well there.

Hmm, that is a bit odd. I thought they might have started promotion during Whitechapel on Monday, as they tend to start adverts a fortnight in advance.

At least they haven't been promoting it for weeks in advance a la Britannia High and Rock Rivals.

At least not films broadcast on ITV2 every other week. :yawn:

I expected Colour of Money to go at 9pm, but I can sort of understand why ITV has put it there. It's sandwiched between 2 strong shows, and has pretty unknown opposition. In theory, it should rate well. Mind you, 9pm would have been a decent slot as well, up against weak opposition and AD lead-in.

Incidentally, has the 3rd series of Benidorm been filmed yet? And also, which website confirms that they're 1 hour episodes cos I can't find that info. Thanks .

Thats an interesting Saturday schedule.

Total Wipeout v YBF/TV Burp
Lets Dance v Colour of Money
Casualty v Takeaway

I think BBC1 will win the first two, but Takeaway will beat Casualty.