The difference is Corrie is against a 10million+ rater, EastEnders 5m+ thats the difference. Corrie is Sunday's more than EE on Wednesday, but both get no advertusing for the change is schedule. When EE is on against BGT in its usual slot it drops below 6million.

I didn't say EE's rating was poor, but Robbie likes to change the goalposts depending on which channel he talking about.

Surely those were in series one

Its not like I care that much anyway, won't be watching it, haven't seen any of it since 2 minutes of the very first episode told me enough to know i'd be never watching it again, Joining BB/CBB I'm a Celeb on things I once watched but will never watch again, anything other than Strictly with a Celeb in it makes me want to stick my head in deep fat fryer.

It can be argued that because Corrie rates much stronger than EE, a "poorer" rating is more newsworthy. The audience share on Sundays is also commonly larger than during the week so with more viewers available it is also fair to say, that in comparison to EE's relatively weak showing in the ratings, that Corries rating of 6m is worse than EE's rating of 6.7m, simply because there is less people watching telly. But it's all academic anyway. Shows outside their regular slots rarely perform as well as they do in their regular ones.

Waterloo Road needs axing, not recommissioning! When are the muppets at the BBC going to see that? It drags BBC One down for the whole night. Live From the Apollo is appalling. Worse than most so-called "ITV flop-zone" ratings.

HdV - I think one moves the goalposts not change them!

Not that I'm an expert in either a literal or metaphorical sense!

The BBC have unveiled more details on its Winter Olympics coverage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/sochi2014/. BBC Two is going to have an almighty lift in its share with that occupying the whole of daytime for two weeks.

Also, no sign of Outnumbered yet, despite Hugh Dennis saying it will be back at the end of January. I thought it might be paired on Mondays with Car Share, but there's no sign of that at all - there wasn't any clip of it in BBC1's Love 2014 trailer and there was mention of it now being on BBC2. Are there any other upcoming comedies that it could be paired with?

Perhaps it'll be George Gently at 8pm on Thursdays, followed by Outnumbered.

Of course it can do well. Anyone who thinks it can't do well is a bit of an idiot, in the nicest possible way. As for whether it does do well, however, for me it'll come down to how much of the typical anti-talent show crowd Ricky Wilson can draw in - if anything I'd say he's more crucial than Kylie, because the housewives etc who make up the core of Kylie's remaining fanbase are surely those who already watch this kind of thing in their droves. If you think through the musicians on the previous panels of these things since Pop Idol finished - Dannii Minogue, Cheryl Cole, Gary Barlow, Kelly Rowland, Nicole Thingy, Duncan James, Anastacia, Jessie J, Danny O'Donoghue, Tom Jones, will.i.am - there isn't really anyone there outside the mainstream pop music scene. But now there is. Could be interesting times.

Yes. But that was well within a million years ago, no?


Fair enough

Yes, and that overnight didn't need a tape-checking adjustment as the show ran from 18:59 to 19:58. That's one of the highest ratings for an hour-long TOS that I can remember. Obviously people got withdrawal symptoms over Christmas! It appeared to clip Corrie's wings a bit as the soap posted a slightly low rating and share by its standards.

EDIT: in fact that's quite high for a Wednesday Corrie of late, so ignore that bit.

I would say Corrie usually rates closer to 7million than 6m on Sunday's, but anyway that's not important - all programmes rate lower out of their normal slot, but in EE's weakewned state anything seems to dent it.

I agree WR and Live At THe Apollo need axing, next week i think WR will be lower then the week after when they're left on they're own rate below 3million. ITV need to sort of Tuesday's more than BBC1 need to on Wednesday's though.

The trouble with BBC1 is that they just don't know what to do with Wednesdays. ITV's situation with Tuesday's are created purposely because of the Champions League, so it isn't as important for ITV to sort this out until after the football leaves the channel.

With BBC1, they have 12 good Wednesdays each year when Watchdog and The Apprentice are on, but that's it! They perhaps could do this for Wednesdays:

7.00pm The One Show
8.00 EastEnders
8.30 New sitcom
9.00 Drama

But what would that ultimately achieve ratings wise? It's a difficult one because like saturday nights, BBC1 seem content on just letting plodding shows well, plod on!

Bake Off is tipped by many for Wednesdays in the autumn.

are you advocating moving an existing episode of EE or creating an extra each week, thereby getting closer to ITV over-saturation of Corrie (which doesn't need have 5 episodes a week).

Moving Fridays episode. Putting on a 30 minute serial such as the upcoming Dickensian at 8pm Fridays and then lead into a 90 minute comedy block could work well for Friday.

So Eastnders beaten by Emmerdale last night. BBC's fault for needlessly adding a extra episode when its ratings are still struggling only themselves to blame.

Great rating and share for Corrie nobody can stop it its so consistent.

They have the first of their World War programmes starting Wednesday 29th, Paxman's Britain's Great War, so I wonder if Wednesday will be home to most of them. The Ark could follow on as that's meant to be airing late February, and Musketeers is taking up Sundays until late March.

Then they have Bake Off and Apprentice for Autumn. What do people think of pairing Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell with Bake Off? It's a big drama, one that would appeal to both young and old like Bake Off does, so they will want to give it strong lead in. It's 7 episodes, so for the last 3 of GBBO (if it remains 10 episodes) could be used to boost The Apprentice.

To try and help you with some actual figures.
2nd week in January 2012 EE consolidateds were 9.99m/9.77m/9.55m/9.45m
2nd week in January 2013 EE consolidateds were 9.54m/9.22m/9.15m/9.02m

This January EE is overnighting nearly 8m at best which will consolidate on average to 8.6 - 9m.

Wow ok thanks. As many have already said, that audience is definitely resisting returning even in the high season for TV over winter. It definitely deserves more now; it's still nowhere near consistently perfect as the soap forum may be keen to shove down people's throats but it's showing real potential. I thought the surprise return of a character the other night when there were no spoilers out there was a good hook to get people watching because anything could happen. That was a night when 'everyone was talking about it' on twitter.

Bryan Kirkwood and Lorraine Newman did such damage. Not even because it was poor by EE standards (especially during LN), but because in my opinion week after week went by of what was an untransittable show by BBC1 peaktime standards. It was dire. I've read some theories that BK did the real damage and LN was there trying to pick up the pieces and put it on a better footing for DTC to come in and really turn things around; that would be a risky path to have taken but that doesn't mean it's not true.

I remain unconvinced that Waterloo Road should be axed. Certainly the raw number isn't pretty but as has been said repeatedly it has strength with young viewers that really shouldn't be ignored. BBC1 should be serving all audiences including younger viewers and since the BBC has been largely useless at that on their main channel Waterloo Road is pretty important for them.


Saturday nights maybe? Because as is ratings thread tradition someone has to suggest comedy on Saturday night. Of course God knows how they'd actually fit it in.

In terms of new/returning comedy don't they have a new series of Room 101 soon? And the first series of Blandings aired around this time last year is that back in Q1 this year?


I wonder if they might push Strange & Norrell to the Christmas/New Year period where it can make a bit more of a splash. Seven episodes might make it a bit tricky to schedule there though. When is The Casual Vacancy due? I think that would pair very nicely with Bake Off and if played well could give them a strong returnable block (something Strange & Norrell can't) since I think they can probably get a second series out of Vacancy if they wanted.

EastEnders had two awful producers in Kirkwood and Newman, as bas as Kirkwood was he could still pull off big episodes. Newman had to fix a lot of what he did but she wasn't a creative and had no real idea about plotting and drama. Her tenure was spectacularly unremarkable. Hardly anything of note happened. She wasn't kept on to steady the ship waiting for Dominic Treadwell-Collins to see out his contract with Lovely Day. The BBC are dumb but not that dumb. That story is absolute nonsense and 100% not true!

They FINALLY realised EastEnders was in a terrible state and went to somebody that knew the show in DTC. They dropped her like a hot potato and drafted that "my choice to leave/left the show stronger" nonsense press release. Pretty much most media people know she was sacked and many cast and crew weren't sad to see her go. That set was disappointed with the direction the show was taking and with material for months. DTC has made big changes in a short space of time, something Newman couldn't do when she took over from Kirkwood.

Here is what one of the writers had to say about the show in reply to a question on Twitter.

"@LotteryLarry: @man18united @bbceastenders Very kind of you, Faizal. I'm more optimistic than I've been for years in regard #EastEnders."

Newman isn't missed!

The problem is the change wasn't made sooner. Had DTC come in and had his episodes starting before December people would have noticed improvements and stuck around.

Maybe, but I thought given that it's a co-production with BBC America they will want to air it this year as well meaning it has to air in Autumn over here. Nothing has been announced on Casual Vacancy since they commissioned it in December 2012, but according to this Sarah Phelps is writing it.

It does depend how they adapt this. It could go two ways, Merlin/Atlantis or Ripper Street, meets Jane Austin, but I can't see it being paired with Bake Off.

It also depends on how much of the book they adapt (it is a bliddy long book). It's 7x 60min episodes but I think, using Samuel's parlance, it is niche.

Also what effect it being a BBC/BBC Americs/Space co production has is anyone's guess.

Doctor Who season 9 confirmed for 2015, will again air without a mid-season split: http://www.cultbox.co.uk/news/headli...irmed-for-2015

There were a few clips of it in the recent BBC One 'Love 2014' trailer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP5Rl_QloAM at 0.36 & 1.22 in particular.

Any show that consistently drags down an entire evenings schedule should not be there. If you're unconvinced it shouldn't be axed, where would you schedule it? Perhaps it would do business on BBC3 at 7pm once a week. After all the channel is dedicated to the age group Waterloo Road is aimed at.

I think he meant Car Share, which has disappeared off the face of the earth.

It sounded dodgy to start with. It sounds like it's now been buried, Peter Kay or no Peter Kay. They might well premiere it on iPlayer - and then just leave it there.

Perhaps it could move to a Sunday teatime around 6pm. It has been a long time since the BBC had a regular Sunday teatime drama (I think I'm showing my age there).

Obviously there is something about Waterloo Road that the BBC must like