I know.

But the group only consists of 10 games and we've already won our first 4 games. Next 3 are:

Ukraine (Home)
Kazakhstan (Away)
Andorra (Home)

If we win all those 3 (which is very possible) then that would be 7 wins out of 7 and in reality it will be all over.

Which would leave ITV with 2 "dead" qualifiers in Sept and Oct.

Benidorm will be coming back as one hour episodes for S3, according to Derren Litten's site. And they've just arrived in Spain today to film it.

Sorry if everyone already knew, he posted it a while ago, just thought I'd add it in.

I do think that's the wrong move really, I always liked it being 30 minutes, it'll be interesting how viewers will react.

The history of 1 hour specials is very mixed. The Father Ted Christmas special, which I think is 1 hour 15 mins is over long

It makes it difficult for resale purposes to multichannel where everything needs to be the same length. You end up with specials of US and UK never getting aired in reruns because they do not fit standard slots

Its not a single programme. Its 15 programmes with 15 individual ratings.

So BBC1 are exploiting charities to create "another BBC1 hit format" in your opinion. Cynical or what?

I don't think it's exploiting charity if anything it's helping them, just as Strictly Come Dancing did and Celebrity Fame Academy. If the voting goes weird then it exploits the viewers more than anything else.

8.30-11.10pm International Football: Spain v England 6.8m 30%

Wednesday 11th January Overnights
BBC One
20.00- Waterloo Road: 4.36m (18.1%)
21.00- Nature's Great Events: 3.68m (14.5%)

BBC Two
20.00- It's Not Easy Being Green: 2.29m (9.8%)
20.30- MasterChef: 2.97m (12%)
21.00- Terry Pratchett: Living With Alzheimer's: 1.72m (6.8%)

ITV1
19.00- Emmerdale: 7.35m (34.5%)
19.30- Coronation Street: 9.59m (42.1%)
20.30- International Football: Spain v England: 6.78m (30.1%)

Channel 4
18.00- The Simpsons: 2.4m [inc. +1]
18.30- Hollyoaks: 1.71m (8.2%) , +1: 150,000
20.00- Relocation, Relocation: 3.63m (15.1%) , +1: 210,000
21.00- Grand Designs: 3.64m (14.3%) , +1: 310,000
22.00- The World's Biggest Family and Me: 1.79m [inc. +1]

Five
17.30- Neighbours: 1.61m (10.1%)
18.00- Home & Away: 1.13m (5.9%)
20.00- Ice Road Truckers: 1.64m (6.9%)
21.00- Minder: 1.81m (7.1%)

E4
19.00- Hollyoaks: 672,000 (3.5%)
21.00- Broken Arrow: 300,000 [inc. +1]

Film4 [inc. +1]
19.15- Carry On Doctor: 170,000
21.00- Monster-in-law: 210,000

Fiver
18.30- Home & Away: 745,000 (4%)

More4 [inc. +1]
21.00- Dispatches: 70,000

Primetime Shares
ITV1: 30.6%
BBC One: 17%
Channel 4: 10.6% , +1: 0.9%
BBC Two: 7.7%
Five: 5.0%

All Day Shares
ITV1: 24.1%
BBC One: 19.1%
Channel 4 [inc. +1]: 9.8%
BBC Two: 7.5%
Five: 4.8%

Sources: Channel 4 Sales, Digital Spy

Very good night for ITV. The actual match must have averaged close to 8 million viewers, considering there was half an hour buildup. Nature's Great Events did worse than I expected for BBC1, even taking the opposing football match into account. Channel 4 continued to do well with their two hit shows, while Five won't be too happy that 25% of the Minder audience from last week stopped watching.

^ February by the way

Interesting that Waterloo Road didnt benefit from the filler and pre-match on ITV1. Its weird having the football run so late but it seems to have benefitted ITV.

Channel 4 held up well all the same. Five might just decide that CSI spin offs are all they do if the can only get 1.8m for Minder. I dont think it will pick up much in subsequent weeks either. Would it have been a hit on BBC1 or ITV1?

Incidentally did people see the ITV4 barb figures where Alf Wiedesen Pet repeats are getting up to 700k on ITV4 at 9pm on Tuesdays & Wednesdays?

I don't quite understand why five still struggles generally to get an audience more than 2.5 million generally? I mean pretty much everyone can receive the channel now and if that Minder remake had been on ITV it would almost definitely have got 5 million. Neighbours lost a good 2 million when it moved. Five is still a terrestrial channel so why can't some shows receive 5,6,7 million?

I think its difficult for channels to reach beyond the preconceived audience expectations for the channel. People expect UEFA football, Discovery documentaries & US crime procedurals from five. People expect UK drama, soap & big LE shows from ITV. When ITV do good documentaries nobody watches. Five seem to have the same problem when they do things differently as well.

7.7m (31.9%) for the England match itself.

1st Half - 8.1m (32%)

2nd Half - 7.3m (31.8%)

8.3m peak (32.2%) opening 15 minutes.

Doesn't seem bad at all given that a) it was a friendly b) on later than normal and c) was on ITV1 a week after their football debacle.

ITV1
8pm Britain Does The Funniest Things 4.2m 18%
8.30pm Pre-match football 4.7m 19%

11.10pm ITV Late News 2.2m 21%

BBC1
7pm The One Show 4.6m 22%
7.30pm Inside Out 3.4m 15%

10pm BBC News 4.8m 22%

F1 Brazil GP won't be in the top 10 due to Ecclestone's stupidity not to put it as the final race of the year.... it instead is the penultimate race of the year. Could still get 6/7m, but it would get 10m if it was the final race/and if the title goes down to the wire.

The final race this year is in Abu Dhabi which is a 10am start. Stupid move if you ask me... but you'll have to blame Bernie for that.

Good night for ITV last night... although the Beeb held up very well.

I think last nights television on BBC 1, "Nature's Greatest Events" demonstrates exactly the sort of programming a publicly funded channel should be broadcasting and why perhaps ratings aren't the be all and end all. Whilst I admit the channel provide rating bankers SCD and Eastenders the overall variety, breadth and width of BBC 1programming validates the service to the licence payers. Don't get me wrong I too am fascinated by ratings and how different programmes on different channels perform, but it is refreshing to see great quality programmes being made regardless of mass appeal

I think it's partly to do with what GeorgeS said and also this stubborn proportion of the viewing public which simply will not venture away from BBC One or ITV1, or very rarely at least. Call it channel snobbery if you like. Thing is, the alternative is often a lot better!

Doesn't explain such a large drop from episode 1 to episode 2 though, but in fairness it was up against the footie this week and so perhaps when push came to shove, Minder lost out on this occasion, and may receive a bit of a boost back up next week. It may have been a record jobby for many so we could see significant upward adjustment when the officials come out.

Generally though Five will be disappointed with that rating. It practically tied share wise with Ice Road Truckers before it, so they probably could have shown a double bill of that and done about the same numbers. Not great.

I've said all along though that this was the wrong slot for Minder and I still stand by that.

anyone?

IMO, it fared a lot better than expected when you consider the competition aside from the football, The Terry Pratchett documentary dropped from 2.6 to 1.7m and that had Masterchef as a lead in and Nature's Great Events did worse than expected which was suprising considering that this sort of programming pulls in 5-6m.

the ratings for Minder are lower than expected but I think Five will probably renew it for a second series anyway as it's outperforming its slot average and pulling in a similar ratings to what its US import get.

I know, what a stupid decision.

Surely all the European broadcasters will be pretty angry they not only won't get the race in primetime, or approaching primetime, they will in fact get it earlier than most races.

It should have been a night race. I dont know what stopped them making it one - they issued concept art showing the track at night with the same lights used at Singapore and it was widely reported to be one - which would give it 4pm start time if they started at 8pm like Singapore.

Yeah, it's still performing well in Five terms just not quite as high as I imagine they hoped.

Still room for it to bounce back a bit though and if it stays above 1.5m it should get recommissioned.

NGE is repeated on Sunday at 6pm. This is exactly the same scheduling as Secret life Of Elephants. On overnights the final episode of Elephants had more viewers for the Sunday repeat (4.56m) than on the Wednesday (4,12m). That's a total of 8.68m which ain't bad at all, though we don't know how many people watched the programme twice. Would we assume not too many?


If you read the Minder thread you'll find quite a few comments (including one from me) from unimpressed viewers. A fall between parts 1 and 2 of most new shows seems likely - you can't please everyone.

Of course we don't know Five's target for Minder's ratings. Also there's a pre-watershed repeat on Saturdays. Don't suppose anyone knows how that did and how it compares with Five's usual ratings for this slot.

I know this isn't an F1 thread, but a ratings thread still so the below is relevant to the discussion.

Looking at the ratings from the Brazil race for the past 15 years, the race actually rates very well regardless of its position in the calendar: (Thanks to EmilioLargo for the below)

BBC
1992 - 6.00m
1993 - 4.27m (no live version shown; rating is for highlights)
1994 - 3.50m (no live version shown; rating is for highlights)
1995 - 5.90m
1996 - 5.68m

ITV
1997 - 6.84m
1998 - 6.05m
1999 - 7.52m
2000 - 7.37m
2001 - 6.20m
2002 - 5.94m
2003 - 7.08m
-- Race moves to latter part of the calendar --
2004 - 4.11m
2005 - 4.35m
2006 - 4.93m
2007 - 7.15m - Race season finale
2008 - 8.80m - Race season finale

So, apart from 2004 to '06, the race has rated very well. When I first looked at these, I was pretty shocked (especially for the '97 to '03 ratings) at how high they were considering:

- ITV had longer buildup and commercials which dents the average.

Compared to BBC the years before, ITV did very well for peaktime F1 races, although this year there is only one peaktime races.

The only two reasons I can think of for high ratings back then was the support for British drivers and possible inheritance for people thinking Corrie was on at the normal time and thus tuned in to see the F1.

Looking at the ratings in front of me, 4/4.5m for the F1 on BBC for European races is a realistic target, and if I'm to be honest, it would be considered a major disappointment if ratings were lower than what they were on ITV. If ratings are higher than 4.5m, possibly even 5m then it would seem that a thrasing is coming ITV's way.

100% agree with you