Incredible timeshifts for Silent Witness, Thursday's episode added 2.11m! This week's episodes should still be well over 7m despite the relatively low overnights.

Can see Inspector George Gently breaking BBC1's run of 7m+ dramas, but it's been a great month for them on the drama front. Shame it won't be like this all year.

I'll be looking out for that now! Haha

On the subject of Davina McCall. I'm surprised her career has taken off again, she's just as much in demand as she was in the early 00s. Normally female presenters have their time then work drys up.

From ronant:

Saturday 25th January 2014
All programmes above 1.5m, plus the rest of peaktime:

BBC One
10:00 - Saturday Kitchen Live: 1.77m (24.4%)
11:30 - The Good Cook: 1.66m (22.6%)
...
16:30 - Final Score: 2.40m (16.4%)
17:20 - Dynamo: Magician Impossible: 2.89m (16.8%)
18:00 - Reflex: 2.68m (14.3%)
18:45 - BBC News: 4.10m (20.2%)
18:55 - Regional News: 5.20m (25.8%)
19:00 - The Voice UK: 7.89m (35.2%)
20:15 - The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins: 5.03m (23.6%)
21:10 - Casualty: 4.65m (21.6%)
22:00 - Mrs Brown's Boys: 4.72m (23.5%)
22:30 - BBC News: 3.41m (19.5%)

BBC Two
18:00 - Wild Arabia: 1.95m (10.2%)
19:00 - Flog It!: 1.80m (8.1%)
20:00 - Dad's Army: 2.02m (9.2%)
20:30 - Morecambe and Wise in Pieces: 1.79m (8.3%)
21:30 - QI XL: 1.39m (6.6%)
22:15 - West is West: 0.97m (6.6%)

ITV (inc +1)
12:15 - FA Cup Live: 2.67m (26.3%)
...
16:15 - Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang: 2.74m (17.5%)
18:20 - Regional News: 3.05m (16.2%)
18:30 - ITV News: 3.35m (17.4%)
18:45 - Splash!: 3.68m (16.8%)
20:15 - Take Me Out: 3.95m (18.4%)
21:30 - The Jonathan Ross Show: 2.47m (12.0%)
22:30 - ITV News: 1.57m (8.9%)
22:45 - FA Cup Highlights: 1.82m (14.3%)

Channel 4 (inc +1)
19:00 - Speed with Guy Martin: 0.73m (3.3%)
20:00 - Bigfoot Files: 0.69m (3.2%)
21:00 - Hostages: 0.85m (3.9%)
22:00 - Underworld: Rise of the Lycans: 0.73m (4.5%)

Channel 5 (inc +1)
19:40 - NCIS: 0.71m (3.2%)
20:30 - NCIS: 0.96m (4.5%)
21:20 - 5 News: 0.65m (3.0%)
21:30 - Celebrity Big Brother: 2.01m (9.6%)

All-day shares (06:00-24:00, inc +1)
BBC One: 20.0%
BBC Two: 6.8%
ITV: 15.0%
Channel 4: 4.5%
Channel 5: 4.6%

Hostages is beginning to tank for Four now. Five's NCIS repeat had more viewers.

Nice share for the FA Cup.

As you say though that's on Saturdays and I cannot remember what they showed before Splash but they had no major big hits. At the time they were just happy to have a semi-hit show in Splash. That was against weaker competition, which is another reason why Rising Star has huge expectations on it. It has bigger competition and its replacing an axed show that rates more than Splash did last year along with many other shows. It has to do really well otherwise the slot will be down for ITV further than what it is now with the departing DOI.

I don't actually know how the format plays out, e.g do they need a results show every week like DOI or is that towards the end? Thinking a results style show airing Mondays at 8pm between the two Corries could be very interesting, but as I say, maybe it's not needed.

Nice to see you filling your quota of one really sensible, interesting post a week

I fully agree with that. Chris would be one option and definitely agree they need to avoid the usual suspects. ITV need to make an impression here and they absolutely shouldn't play it safe unless they somehow got Ant & Dec doing it.

Is Rising Star a Sunday night show? There's every chance that If Splash is axed that it ends up on Saturday nights

Can't see Ant and Dec involved, they will be busy with BGT auditions

Would ITV risk putting a singing talent show opposite an already established singing talent show?

The whole talk of its acquirement, and I can't remember if it was an official announcement, was that it there to replace DOI.

I can't see them using it on Saturdays against The Voice where it will clash and either lose or be seriously weakened, or we end up with a situation where it is running around the schedules a la X Factor the year before last.

Wouldn't it be nice if they threw it out midweek on Wednesdays 8-9. No reason these shows shouldn't go there.

It's more likely to replace DOI on Sundays. I think ITV have quite a few decent sized hits on Saturday even if Splash goes.

I hope not but with the way things are looking there's going to be two massive weekend slots that will need filling next year

It's a huge disappointment that neither the two big channels put much much into Saturday nights after Christmas. In recent years the BBC have made more of an effort in the spring, god knows why with the lighter evenings, yet in January there's a huge audience out there as shown by the X Factor and SCD only a few weeks before.

Thanks for this DMN. Its no wonder Graham Norton does so well on Friday, he has good geusts (the biggest), and the perfect slot after the high rating news. Jonathon Ross on the other hand has very poor guests and a slot that is too early. Why can they not gets some better guests on.

I suppose its all about putting together a package of shows for Graham Norton to make any move worthwhile as he is very well established at the BBC. True he isn't getting the pre-watershed stuff these days -Totally Saturday was an unfortunate move.

Not sure Michael McIntyre is going to be a like for like replacement for GN -if only for the fact that I cant see him wanting to do as many chat shows. However MM must surely be given a big budget pre-watershed entertainment format-he is probably the only stand- up able to appeal to a family audience -probably the only person who might rival Ant and Dec in bringing in a decent amount of viewers on Saturday nights.

They're all trying things other than singing shows. But seeing as itv's last big hit was a talent show and the BBC are doing pretty well with one I can see why they've done it. I think it's a bad idea, but I can see some logic in it.


ITV cancelled DOI knowing that the ratings this series would almost certainly continue the downward trend and now it's doing under 5m. Had it bounced back for the all star run they'd be overturning the cancellation "by popular demand", particularly now that Splash is on its way out. But the ratings haven't been anywhere near enough.

Rising Star is in-house which is an advantage (although an advantage that DOI also had) - and unlike The Voice it wasn't the subject of a massive bidding war. It won't be cheap but I doubt it will be wildly expensive.

In terms of demos, DOI skews about 16-17% from what we've seen. I'd expect Rising Star to be more in the 20-25% range like The Voice.


The gimmick on The Voice wears off every year but still manages to bring them back the next time around. I imagine they'll just do what The Voice does and focus on the auditions.


The host won't make or break this show - the judges matter a bit more but a lot less than they do on The Voice. The sell on this one is all in the technology (which is a big risk to assume the audience will engage and interact - if they don't then I'm not sure it really works!).

A competent young autocue reader will be fine. Schofield is the wrong demo. Willoughby has done The Voice. O'Leary does X Factor. Ant & Dec are too busy. Vernon Kay might be looking for work next January but I think his moment may have passed.


Indeed, launching drama at 7pm would just leave them at the mercy of a very old ABC1 skewing BBC1 line-up.

Thanks for these some good time shifting there for things like the Voice, BOAF and Silent Witness especially.

I do wonder if we will get the Schofield/Willoughby brand yet again-as they appear to be joined at the hip in one sense. They will have to give Schofe something else after the end of DOI.

Those f-words have always been there. Series 1 was originally shown in a 10.35pm slot and its never been repeated before 10pm. That will be down to the amount of f-words in it. I believe there are strict quotas in the amount of f-words the BBC will allow between 9pm and 10pm on BBC1 and that series 1 is above that limit. Series 2 and 3 will have less f-words, though to my naked ear it's hard to tell the difference. This means BBC1 have any less options for 9.30 repeats (always 9.30, never 9pm) of MBB that we would think - just two series and a few Christmas specials.

Back to ratings, and I wonder if last night's MBB will outnumber Wednesday's Outnumbered in the overnights, due to Outnumbered's clumsy scheduling. Outnumbered should timeshift more though and end up with a higher final rating.

Nice solid night for BBC2 last night. Casualty still seems to be overnighting too little but should move ahead of Who Dares Wins and Mrs Brown in the finals when timeshift comes into play.

Shame casualty struggles to hit the fives these days, last nights was great especially the dynamic between the two brothers, I for one can relate to it!

Would it be wicked to hope that it will be his P45?

The Voice looking really solid there at 7.9m. Series 4 looks a certainty and BBC1 will be very happy with how it's doing. It isn't quite flying upwards like some on here said it might but the numbers are still really good. It's basically getting the same as the episodes that avoided BGT/Takeaway were getting last year. Who Dares Wins doing well after it too. Elsewhere, Splash isn't doing horribly but the numbers aren't really good enough either. It might find itself given some kind of reprieve in a different slot, but I certainly don't expect to see it back on Q1 Saturdays again. Take Me Out took a dip too. We know this shows strength are its demos but 3.95m is a really lacklustre number for it. It'd no doubt be better Takeaway but it'll only get one episode with that lead-in (The Cube will then be back).

It's interesting really how ITV have really scaled back Take Me Out. Series 1 was 8 episodes in Winter 2010 (running for 60 mins). Series 2 & 3 were then both 14 episodes each and extended to 75 mins per episode in Winter 2011 and 2012. After the success of series 3 they decided to do two series back to back, one in Autumn 2012 (9 x 75') and one in Winter 2013 (8 x 75') plus a Christmas special. The Autumn series really struggled against Strictly (more than I think anyone thought it would) and the Winter series was down year on year after that (but not drastically so). This time therefore they've axed the Autumn run and the Christmas special (which actually did well) yet the Winter run is still only 8 episodes, way below the 14 it used to get. ITV have really punished it, which seems odd for what still must be a pretty lucrative show. This year's numbers are about the same as last year's, so I wonder if they'll extend it again or keep it short?

Looking ahead it would seem The Cube takes over from Take Me Out for a 6 week run, then it looks like Celebrity Chase is being paired with BGT. That will probably work reasonably well. I wonder though what they'll put before XF this time. Celebrity Chase did OK-ish there last year but putting an old-skewing show against Strictly was a poor move really. Yet Take Me Out didn't work either (in total numbers at least). Family films could be an option I guess but they don't have that many really. The option of plonking XF at 7/7.15pm (an hour before Strictly ends) and promoting +1 could be worth a shot but I'm not sure how well it'd work out. They could then have family films around 5pm and maybe give Keyhole a longer run to air out of XF at 9pm-ish (or even try a sitcom) before going into Ross afterwards.


-It was up 0.28m on last week, not half a million.
-It isn't rating on par with XF's audition shows. Last year XF's Saturday audition shows averaged 8.9m/40%. Episode 3 got 9.1m/42%. The Voice last night got 7.9m/35%. So whilst it's doing really well, it's not on par with XF. The live shows will also have worse retention than XF's live shows.

I agree they've played a blinder moving it to January and it's doing really well. Not sure about it killing off Rising Star. If RS does well internationally this year then it could be in a similar position to the one TVUK was in when it launched in 2012 when it managed to create hype by piggybacking off BGT and hyping up a ratings battle. It'll be interesting to see where RS ends up. I suspect it was bought in to replace DOI on Sundays but with Splash going and to get some hype alongside TVUK Saturday might be a better option. The problem there however is Takeaway as there probably won't be room for RS as well as Takeaway on one night, and RS will most likely have more than 7 episodes which is what Splash has this year. Takeaway meanwhile can't start in early January as Ant & Dec are busy doing BGT and they spend most of the week doing Takeaway when it's on air. They'll probably be able get an extra episode or two out of Takeaway but that'd be it.

I think the best way around it would be initially to have RS on both Saturdays and Sundays for the first few weeks (75 mins per night) and then when Takeaway comes back (a couple of weeks earlier than this year) RS would revert to just Sundays (90 mins). Something like this for 4 weeks:

Saturday 10th-31st January
19:00 - Rising Star
20:15 - Take Me Out
21:30 - The Jonathan Ross Show

Sunday 11th January-1st February
18:45 - All Star Family Fortunes
19:45 - Rising Star
21:00 - Mr Selfridge

Then, for 9 Saturdays:

Saturday 7th February-5th April
19:00 - Saturday Night Takeaway
20:20 - Take Me Out
21:35 - The Jonathan Ross Show

And for 6 Sundays:

Sunday 8th February-15th March
18:30 - All Star Family Fortunes
19:30 - Rising Star
21:00 - Mr Selfridge

That way Rising Star would get 14 episodes: 10 Sundays (so replacing DOI) and 4 Saturday episodes at the start of the run that would allow it to piggyback onto some hype with The Voice. Takeaway then picks up the baton on Saturdays and gets 2 extra episodes. Could potentially be a very strong lineup but it all depends on Rising Star. I think with strong execution and some pre-launch hype RS could do very well and potentially dent The Voice. Using that Sunday schedule it would also dent Call The Midwife, or at least get ITV a decent young audience against CTM and hold up well against it, potentially turning Q1 Sundays back in ITV's favour.

...a little bit maybe-but acceptable for this thread

Haha, actually that's probably a good shout, phil and holly, I wonder if he's waiting for the call! The problem is most presenters have flops on there cv, someone earlier mentioned Davina, knowing itv they will poach Marvin and Emma just for the press coverage!

Does anyone have a brake down for both Splash and the Voice? Be interesting to see if Splash got any sort of head start over the Voice etc.