Low ratings all round at 9pm last night

2.7m for ITV1 isn't great but BBC1 winning the slot with 4.2m isn't very good either, are the New Tricks repeats running out of steam, with low ratings against weak competition?

I would say the opposite. Wipeout will feel some heat for the 1st time. Takeaway & Casualty will be neck & neck.

Colour of Money is probably ITVs most important show of the year since they make it and want to sell the format hence its favoured slot.

I really don't like that ITV schedule at all. I would say The Colour Of Money is more of an unknown than Lets Dance which has the Comic Relief brand associated with it and as a result should pull in a decent 5m, like Eurovision. I can see The Colour Of Money only getting around 3.5-4m now. I always thought it seemed more a late peak show, rather than early peak. Also I think TV Burp provides a better lead in to A&D.

The Colour Of Money imo could really work at 9pm with it only against The Old Guys & Outtake TV which would both probably be >4m.

Maybe ITV will switch the schedule around another week when The Colour Of Money is established & I suspect with that running now Mr & Mrs will run alongside BGT with Primeval & Beat The Star could be a Summer show filling a gap in the poor ITV Saturday schedules last Summer.

I presume the decision was based around the scheduling of Duel last year, where it didn't really take off in a later slot. If it's sandwiched between two established hits then it has a better chance of performing - sounds quite logical to me.

Let's Dance will do reasonably well - sounds dreadful but it's for Comic Relief and it's on BBC1 so... I don't know how I'd call it between the two though.

On a separate note, I see ITV have scheduled 'Britain Does The Funniest Things' at 8pm tonight, to bridge the gap between Corrie and the football. I'd have thought a You've Been Framed repeat would have been better there. I've never heard of this other show before, and they sound quite similar.

Yeah, I agree, The Colour of Money will do well at 6.40pm, although I was expecting it to move to 9pm.

By the looks of things, I can see Britain's Got Talent launching on Saturday 18th April, a week later than last year, so that the live week can run without a football break, and the launch can avoid Doctor Who's Easter Special. I can see Primeval and Mr and Mrs running alongside it, with Mumbai Calling after it, like this:

6.30pm All Star Mr and Mrs
7.30pm Primeval
8.30pm Britain's Got Talent
9.30pm Mumbai Calling

I can then see Beat The Star and The Cube running through the Summer, until The X Factor returns.

As for Britain Does The Funniest Things, I agree that it was stupid to put it there, when YBF would have done better. Britain Does The Funniest Things is a repeat, anyway, and only got about 4.5m when it was first shown (as part of the ...Funniest Things series last Spring).

On another note, I'm curious as to why ITV have moved Moving Wallpaper, although it's surely a vote of confidence that they've moved it from its planned Summer slot to the more competitive Q1. Also, it's a lead in to Al Murray, so clearly ITV have confidence in it. I think it could get 3-4m, and possibly become ITV's Not Going Out in ratings terms, as that was under 3m in its first series, and still doesn't do that well, but keeps getting recommissioned because of its quality. I also think that Echo Beach dragged it down last year, and it will really benefit without it.

I've no idea how Al Murray will do, possibly 2.5-3.5m?

Apparently, ITV were reasonably pleased with Wallpaper's performance last year, due to the high amount of 16-34s it got. I can see ITV's entire Friday line up doing well with 16-34s, although not so well with overall numbers.

Whatever happens, it's going to be a big week or so for ITV, with:

Thursday 19th: Journey To The Edge of The World launches.
Saturday 21st: Colour of Money launches
Monday 23rd: Law and Order: UK launches (probably the biggest launch of the lot)
Tuesday 24th: Champions League is back
Friday 27th: New Friday comedy schedule launches.

Some big things happening, there.

Does anyone have access to early evening ratings to find out whether the shake up at ITV News has affected the ratings? I can't imagine it has, but it might have ...

Does anyone know how the repeats of Rab C Nesbitt are doing on BBC2 on Friday nights?

csi did well for channel 5 last night 3 million at 9pm

Only Meridian/Thames Valley Tonight has changed so far. Even if the entire Thames Valley audience switched off, it wouldn't hardly effect the overall ITV Regional News figure

I'm on about ITV News itself, not the regions. There will probably no good impression of whether the shake up means regional news is performing differently until about 3 months time.

Tuesday 10th February 2009

8:00
FOX American Idol 23,067m
CBS NCIS 17,305m
NBC Biggest Loser: Couples 7,349m
ABC Be My Valentine Charlie Brown 5,090m
CW 90210 2,408m

8:30
FOX American Idol 25,955m
CBS NCIS 18,640m
NBC Biggest Loser: Couples 7,854m
ABC Be My Valentine Charlie Brown 4,664m
CW 90210 2,362m

9:00
CBS The Mentalist 19,406m
FOX Fringe 11,867m
NBC Biggest Loser: Couples 10,382m
ABC Scrubs 4,601m
CW Privileged 1,598m

9:30
CBS The Mentalist 19,915m
NBC Biggest Loser: Couples 11,671m
FOX Fringe 9,053m
ABC Scrubs 4,234m
CW Privileged 1,433m

10:00
CBS Without a Trace 14,844m
NBC Dateline 11,502m
ABC True Beauty 3,682m

10:30
CBS Without a Trace 14,255m
NBC Dateline 11,079m
ABC True Beauty 3,844m
[LIST][*]ABC did terrible in general for the whole night getting up to only 5m in 3 hours.
[*]The Mentalist came back from a break (13th January) and came back strong.
[*] American Idol did great like always:yawn:.
[*] Fringe did good beating the Biggest Loser.[/LIST]

The Mentalist is doing fantastically and very close to the 20m mark, I wouldn't be surprised if it hits 20m later in the season, NCIS did very well against American Idol which came up tops as usual.

Fringe is doing okay but its not retaining much of its AI lead in. ABC had an awful night with Charlie Brown, Scrubs and True Beauty performing poorly and NBC did well with TBL and Dateline.

Was NCIS new as well? CBS shows that you can be competitive with American Idol by not appealing to the same audience. Advertisers need to wise up to the fact that there are people outside the 18-49 demographic that buy stuff.

The first repeat on Jan 30th failed to make BBC2's top 30 for that week so it had less than 1.66m viewers.

When a New Tricks repeat gets a bumper audience (more than many new dramas) it's because BBC1 have stuck it on to the end of a new series, so some people don't realise they're watching a repeat until it's too late. (Not me. You don't catch me out that easily.)

Amazing results for NCIS up against American Idol, and The Mentalist performs brilliantly too. CBS clearly the dominant force in terms of overall ratings at the moment.

Really lacklustre ratings in the UK once again. After the big competition on Monday nights, Tuesdays seem like an afterthought. A good chance for the three lesser terrestrials to exploit.

Some interesting new shows appearing over the next couple of weeks. The competition on Saturdays could be very close (at least in the early evening before Ant and Dec which should comfortably beat Casualty). And I too question the wisdom of returning Moving Wallpaper to Fridays at 9pm. The crime dramas have been performing very consistently there and they've now been exchanged for something that looks like it'll pull 4 million at best.

It was new, it's amazing that show that started with 11m in a low key 8pm slot has become a top 5 show. When Five started showing it in 2006 it was doing 1.2-1.4m but when they moved it to Fridays it really took off. I'm surprised that they have never tried to secure first run rights from FX but I guess that they will try and bid for them alongside the upcoming spin-off.

How important is the 18-49 ranking for US networks?

I'm asking because although The Mentalist got a fantastic 19/20m overall audience, it was behind both Fringe and Biggest Loser in the 18-49s.

Is this a cause of concern at all? I know in the UK, there would be absolutely no concern but I think the mentality is a bit different in the States, is it not.

18-49 is very important in the US. It's just worth more money.

I wouldn't say that anything that gets 20m is in trouble though, whatever demo it is in.

Anyone know how Emmerdale did?

Isn't CBS the older audience network compared to the likes of NBC or FOX? They do have shows that attract younger viewers like Two and a Half Men, How I Met Your Mother etc but the nature of the dramas they air tend to attract an older audience whereas sci-fi drama like Lost and Fringe tend to appeal to a younger audience.

Indeed, EastEnders got 6.63m (28.1%) and Emmerdale managed 6.91m (30.3%)

Time - BBC-1 (Share) - BBC-2 (Share) - ITV-1 (Share) - Channel 4 (Share) - Five (Share)
19:00 - 5.20 m ( 24.0 % ) - 1.52 m ( 7.0 % ) - 7.02 m ( 32.4 % ) - 0.97 m ( 4.5 % ) - 0.25 m ( 1.1 % )
19:15 - 5.56 m ( 24.6 % ) - 1.58 m ( 7.0 % ) - 7.28 m ( 32.3 % ) - 0.96 m ( 4.3 % ) - 0.27 m ( 1.2 % )
19:30 - 6.32 m ( 26.9 % ) - 2.18 m ( 9.3 % ) - 6.82 m ( 29.0 % ) - 1.04 m ( 4.4 % ) - 0.49 m ( 2.1 % )
19:45 - 6.93 m ( 29.3 % ) - 2.53 m ( 10.7 % ) - 6.51 m ( 27.4 % ) - 0.88 m ( 3.7 % ) - 0.52 m ( 2.2 % )

Cheers for that. I thought Emmerdale would have rated higher for the episode.

Thanks for this. It's interesting to see how even when Eastenders loses the clash, it's always ahead by the end of both shows.

Do you know how Doctors and Nurses at War did? Thanks.

It got 2.52m (10.7%)