Hectic day at work today so only just seen this. Genuinely surprised by that, I was expecting a drop to about 2.2m. That's a fantastic number, about as many as a BB launch show these days. Stonking share too. This series of CBB is certainly hitting the spot for viewers and deservedly so. On paper Speidi last year was going to be tough to beat but they've raised the bar even higher this run. Hugely entertaining escapism night after night and long may it continue.

I do agree with DS though that this must be the last we see of the secret room. No harm done this time, quite the opposite in fact the way it worked out, but some new ideas are needed going forwards. It's not all good news for C5 either- the programmes around CBB don't seem to be doing as well as they normally do. If you've got a show delivering nearly 12% share across 90 minutes of the day, you really ought to be averaging higher than 5.3% across 24 hours. The key problem of keeping as many of those CBB viewers around as possible has not been addressed, and rubbish like Hens Behaving Badly is not the answer.

I'm going to be sympathetic to an extent and assume that their plans this January were disrupted by Betrayal being too much of a turkey to contemplate filling a CBB sandwich with it. But next year they really ought to be looking to do something more substantial in and around the show. A big female-skewing import is one way they could do that.

A primetime drama on BBC1 that isn't getting 5m and isn't obscure BAFTA bait has no business being in primetime. And any programme that gets such pitiful numbers at 8.30pm and isn't a Panorama special on rainforests is a liability and underperforming.


Exactly!

Waterloo Road's defence is that it's cheap! So bloody what? It tanks all the time! And there is no point having a high percentage of one demo if your ratings are still tinym it has been stinking out primetime for far too long along with Lifeless At The Apollo.

C4 doing live broadcast from the International Space Station in March
http://www.channel4.com/info/press/n...oes-into-space

This series of CBB is the best since it moved to Channel 5. Just a shame other shows like Under The Dome, Person Of Interest weren't scheduled around it.

Also seemingly confirming we'll have at least two more years of 'Moffat is ruining Doctor Who' posts.


Moving it to BBC3 completely misses the point that it attracts young viewers to BBC1.

Additionally I would point out that part of the point of having a publicly financed broadcaster like the BBC is that they don't have to be concerned purely with how many people and are watching and more with who those people are. As I said the BBC have a responsibility to put content on BBC1 that appeals to the entire public and there's a very strong argument to be made that they dramatically under serve younger audiences on the main channel. And frankly this notion that it should move to BBC3 annoys me – the idea that the BBC should ship all their worthy documentaries (that nobody watches) to BBC4 would go down like a lead balloon.

Also if he's going to be working on DW for 18 of the next 24 months it surely means series four of Sherlock is some way off. If DW series nine goes out next Autumn, as it surely will, I can't see Sherlock series four before summer 2016 at the earliest. Surely the only way Sherlock has a chance of being January 2016 after this is if production of series nine of DW starts in September-ish this year, carrying straight on from the wrap on series eight, to give them a late-Spring run next year. But that's highly unlikely.

I think they'd already committed to a number of series/years before the move to Scotland. The move knocked a million viewers off as did some slightly unfavourble scheduling against emmerdale. OH and the fact its rubbish

I doubt it will carry on once the the current commission has run out. Hopefully series 10 will be it

Unfortunately we're in an era in which traditional children's programming isn't welcomed on the main two BBC channels, because they don't appeal to big enough audience.

BBC1 and 2's daytime audience's have gone up since ditching CBBC, the same could happen for the slot Waterloo Road occupies with 'a better drama'


I believe series 4 and 5 of Sherlock have been 'mapped out' by Moffat and Gatiss, so maybe they set aside time this along with series 9 of Doctor Who

With Benedict Cumberatch's schedule showing no sign of easing up I think its always been pretty clear that series four of Sherlock was going to be some way off. Although in truth I'm not sure Doctor Who should really prohibit another series of Sherlock for January 2016. In theory Moffat shouldn't need to be that hands on with Sherlock and he is only writing one episode per series. Carving out a little down time between series' of Doctor Who to get a Sherlock script done certainly isn't impossible especially since Moffat and Gatiss have been saying they already have series 4 and 5 planned out.

I do wonder if the BBC and everyone involved might be better off just switching to occasional specials with Sherlock at this point. Let Moffat and Gatiss fire off some scripts and then just schedule shooting for some as and when you can. Trying to shoot one episode at a time should be much easier than three.

Hard to know what will happen there. Yes, Selfridge is pretty bad, but so might Musketeers be.

Not sure I agree with that, and it seems a bit early to be labelling it as such when we're only six days into it.

So far it has been quite a thing!

I found Celebrity Mastermind a bit odd this year, like they commissioned it and then forgot to leave space for it. Rather than it being stripped daily, it was off and on over Christmas and is now hanging around on various days well into the New Year.

Interesting they are doing a programme on the weather. Weather is now interesting again it seems, whereas last time before Christmas coverage on Local Radio was apparently sufficient.

What'd Hens Behaving Badly get? Low I presume, though it is an awful choice of a filler. Like one of the many shows that clearly want the younger viewers so bad but never get them that are aired in CBB sandwiches. I like the idea of airing female skewing imports though.

6.7m is nearer to a normal overnight for EastEnders, than 6.7m is to a normal overnight for Coronation St.

At the moment, anyway.

People keep making excuses for EastEnders, both across Christmas and now after last nights, saying that the episodes did ok because they were out of slot, on a different day, earlier or later than usual.

This is what I don't get. Unlike most Corrie out of slot episodes which are because of football or special events, EastEnders out of slot episodes are of their own making, deliberately scheduled like this. So why bother throwing episodes out all over the place, if it just results in them having to defend the figures.

But when? DW is in production January-September this year, and presumably the same next year. That leaves two and a half months at the end of each year for Sherlock production, which usually takes six months. Even assuming that Cumberbatch/Freeman/the rest are free in the very tight gap now left by Doctor Who's unbroken ninth series, all the crew who work on both shows need to sleep at some point!!

Series 5, presumably in 2018, would take Moffat and Gattis' work on Sherlock into a tenth year production-wise. It'd be something if it a bunch of people so heavily in demand committed to one project much longer than that.

Assuming Moffat doesn't like to be very hands-on (script rewrites, editing and what have you) with Sherlock, which I don't think we know one way or the other about, logistically it's just about possible, if everything falls into place and everyone is free at exactly the right time. But then you have the question of would the BBC want DW running September-December 2015 and Sherlock through January 2016, as opposed to more spread out? Series 2 of Sherlock followed on from an Autumn with Doctor Who in it, but it was a DW split-series, starting in April and finishing in October. Unless they start production on it straight off the back of series eight, a solid 13-episode run of DW next year would go out in the Autumn, and that being immediately followed by 3 Sherlock films would verge on Moffat overkill, no?
Suggested something along those lines months ago. Or alternatively shoot one 'series' of three episodes at once, and then put them out every New Year's Day for three years. Then by the time they've all gone out you've had time to take stock, maybe found time to film another series in the extra time you've given yourself, or maybe said 'enough is enough'.

I don't think there is ever any justification for The One Show to be on an hour.

It does what it does, like or loathe it, but an hour of it smacks of can't being bothered to do anything else, particularly as it gets extended and shortened at random.

And if Twitter is anything to go by, half that key demographic spend the whole episode complaining that it isn't as good as it used to be, which it isn't.

We hear all the time that ITV should be preparing a replacement for its fading talent shows, well this is also a case where BBC1 should be preparing a replacement young skewing programme to replace its fading school drama.

With another six weeks of uncertainty over the top rating of 2013, at least we know what the top rating of 2014 is at the moment. Will be interesting to see if anything can beat that before the England World Cup matches. The death in Coronation St, maybe? Talent final, at a push?

As Robbie (I think) said that other day, it's not even a certainty that England's World Cup matches will top it. The first match will finish at 1am, so that's unlikely to, and if we get tanked in that and the Uruguay programme average is dragged down by ITV's coverage going on for massively longer than the match itself, that one might not either. By which point we might well be out and nobody will even care about the third match.

Have you ever actually agreed with ANYONE about ANYTHING on here? I was just curious!

Well for the Euro matches both BBC 1 and ITV's coverage was split into pre match, match and post match. Not sure if the same will happen with the World Cup this year but one never knows.

Can I just say that it is the duty of the BBC to provide programming for kids. They do. It is the duty of the BBC to provide programmes for teenagers. They do. They also provide programmes for young adults, middle aged adults and the elderly. In this age of multi-channel where 99.8% of the UK public receive ALL of the BBC's channels, there is plenty of choice for all age groups.

BBC1's duty is primarily to provide programming of all genres that can appeal to the family as a whole. It is not meant to exclusively make "youth programming" but is expected to make shows that everyone in a household can enjoy. Waterloo Road no longer falls into this category because it is no longer universally appealing. Therefore prime time BBC1 is not the place for it.

Waterloo Road has led a charmed life for too long. This piece of crap TV show needs to go. Try and make something else that can get a young demo AND get 5m at 8pm in primetime.

It's nothing but idiocy to think a drama that doesn't rate well but is cheap and fills a quota should be in primetime. Jesus Christ! What are people smoking!?!