It is live only or does it also includes VOSDAL.

EastEnders held up very well for an out of slot Wednesday edition.
It makes you wonder why the BBC didn't promote it at all because it is a pretty big week. The Phil/Sharon reveal is pretty massive and something that has been waiting to come out since 2006 but some how the BBC felt it would be nice to surprise us again by keeping it a secret.

Good for the soaps last night and Bake off (which I think is very poor compared to Masterchef)

Live only.

Meanwhile, over in football land: http://www.thefa.com/news/england/20...ures-confirmed

Wednesday 5th March - England vs Denmark - 20:00 UK time (Wembley)
Friday 30th May - England vs Peru - 20:00 UK time (Wembley)
Wednesday 4th June - England vs Ecuador - 20:00 UK time (Miami)
Saturday 7th June - England vs Honduras - 21:45 UK time (Miami)

When are we expecting the Britain's Got Talent final to be? The kick-off time for the 7th June game suggests we could see the ITV schedule for that night as follows:

18:15 - ITV News
18:30 - Soccer Aid Preview*
19:00 - Britain's Got Talent Final
21:30 - England vs Honduras
23:55 - ITV News

Would be an extremely strong primetime for ITV! I forgot they had a week gap between the semi finals and the final last year, but not sure that worked.

Will be interesting to see what happens.

* yes, Soccer Aid is back, the match on Sunday 8th June.

That does sounds weird. Do they have jet-packs?


Wrong for the second week running of course; my paper Radio Times has the final airing a week tomorrow.


Government-serving BBC? Tell that to the Tories! Of course ITV slashed their news budget as well, which diminished quality and hasn't helped their ratings.

You mean another series

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/n...al-for-daytime

Mr Selfridge will premiere on iTunes tonight, which may have an effect on Sunday's rating? I expect Muskateers to come out top anyway.

Not sure whether the week between the semi finals and the final made much difference either way to the ratings for the final. They could do it again but I don't think it's particularly necessary, nor do I think it was particularly bad. Maybe some momentum was lost I suppose. I don't think it's great when they have the final the night after the last semi final as it doesn't give the acts who get through on the last semi final much time at all, and the producers tend to struggle too. In 2012 it worked pretty well just to have a day off between the semi finals and the final, and they could do that again this year like this:

Saturday 12 April - Saturday 17 May: Audition shows 1-6
Sunday 18 May: Audition show 7
Saturday 24 May: Champions League Final
Sunday 25 May-Thursday 29 May: Semi Finals
Saturday 31 May: Final

Could work well, although they've never had a full week between the last audition show and the semi finals before so not sure if that would affect it.

The schedule you've proposed for 7 June looks really strong but I'm not sure if 7pm might be a bit early for the final in June. Although 10pm is quite a late finish I suppose so swings and roundabouts.

I doubt it - even if it sold really well on iTunes we'd probably be talking tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands, so that's just 0.1m difference in the ratings. In reality I suspect we're not even talking in terms of thousands.

Worth noting attentional have got the Corrie timings for last night episode as 19.30-20.00. It should have been tape-checked as follow; 19.30-19.55. Not sure why it wasn't tape-checked because Emmerdale was. The tape-checked rating would be approx. 8.2/8.3m. A 5-minute breakdown would be good to see if anyone has one please?

Agreed. I suspect ITV might have enough trouble getting people to watch it for free.

I did notice that but assumed it was right because, as you say, Emmerdale was evidently tape-checked.

That's more or less the point I was making, it's not that people don't care about people living abroad (Death in Paradise is an example that they clearly do) but they don't care for people who are abroad out of their own choice. As I mentioned Neighbours and Home and Away work because even though they're set in nice places, everyone stays indoors most of the time, and also, they are based around proper communities where people are born, grow up, and have ties to, and so people are there for a reason. It's a universal situation which everyone can relate to, no matter where they are.

In Eldorado, it was simply too contrived a situation for people to have sympathy for them. If they were having a terrible time, the average viewer is just going to think, if it's so awful for them, it's their own fault for going there. It's like the press used to say, sun, sea and so what?


Indeed, at ten o'clock especially there's a fabulous opportunity to get high ratings. BBC1 and ITV are showing the news, and ITV almost always show repeats after it. BBC2 can only show half hour programmes because of Newsnight. So there's only C5 to compete with and C4 generally has a younger audience who stays up late, so they should be cleaning up at ten o'clock. If I was C4 I'd be putting all my best stuff there.

And of couirse C4's decline compared to BBC2 has come about despite wholesale poaching of loads of BBC2 talent. Jamie Oliver, Jimmy Docherty, Mary Portas and Hilary Devey all got higher ratings when they were on BBC2, Devey in particular has failed spectacularly since she was poached. And they're all doing similar things to what they did on the Beeb so C4 can hardly say they're innovating to any great extent. In fact a decade or so ago they used to be way more innovative and get higher ratings, the two certainly aren't mutually exclusive.


A totally negligible affect, I'd say, Mr Selfridge skews old anyway making it even more likely it's a tiny, tiny percentage of its audience who use iTunes to download TV shows. If Bad Education can get higher ratings than ever before when it's being premiered on iPlayer - a much bigger platform for TV shows in the UK, and on a channel with an audience much more likely to watch online - there should be no excuse whatsoever.

*cough*Underpredicting*cough*

Yeah the timings are wrong therefore giving it a slightly depressed overnight rating. 8.2/8.3m will be approx. correct once tape-checked.

Attentional are not doing particularly well lately. They're still showing last Friday's CBB live eviction as a two-hour affair when it was actually 90 minutes.

I don't see how I'm underpredicting, one has an 9million+ lead in, tonnes of promotion, free of adverts (therefore easier to watch on the night) and is likely to generally rate higher than Mr Selfridge at least for the 1st/2nd eps depending on how good it is. The advert free programme will always come out top if both are evenly matched in the big drama stakes - which they are. So do think Mr Selfridge will remain above Muskateers?

Eastenders and Emmerdale clash on Tuesday 28th January confirmed

I think Mr. Selfridge will win out in the overnights. It will be around 6.2m for Mr. Selfridge consolidating to 7.6m. The Musketeers wil get 5.6m in the overnights but will consolidate to 8.3m. That's what I'm guessing anyway!

Isn't Stacey suppose to be returning That week? DTC seems to add the bigger things at the start of the week so perhaps Stacey will return on the Monday and have another Big week for the soap.
Looked at spoilers for that week and they have been kept to a minimum again.

Why do you think Muskateers will not win in overnights? It has no adverts which does affect viewers choice when faced with two dramas. Is your estimate with +1?

Never underestimate the power of women with their telly fix! Once they've watched Call The Midwife, they will want their other nice drama, Mr. Selfridge. Both will appeal to the same demographic. Hubby will have to record The Musketeers. Both dramas will do well.

Yes. My estimate includes +1.

Is Stacey back at the end of January? I thought it was at the end of February. Looking at the spoilers, it might be the introduction of more Carters? I'm sort of glad DTC is holding stuff back though because the onscreen surprise is nice and something EE has been missing for a while.

That is my hope for this Sunday

Possibly...I thought I read end of Jan but anyway EastEnders will be able to hold up better than it has done I reckon.

No that's the week Timothy West and Annette Badland join the cast, Stacey's apparently returning the week after (on the Friday.) I wonder how they will promote Stacey's return, as it's looking likely that she's only going to be in one episode at first, before joining properly a few weeks later.

Looking at this week's ratings, it's down the least of the soaps week on week and the shares are up unlike the other two which I suppose shows a bit of promise.

Hopefully mid/high 6s in the clash. In the next couple of weeks I think it should start to crack 8m, at least on the Monday episodes, which seem to rate the highest at the moment.