Sorry, are you seriously trying to suggest City's fan base is larger than any of United/Liverpool/Arsenal/Chelsea's? The only one you'd say they even have a chance of overtaking, given Liverpool's current resurgence, would be Chelsea, but given Chelsea don't exactly look like they're about to fall into mid-table any time soon City could be stuck behind in fifth place for a long time yet. And as I said, with clubs with historically massive fanbases like Forest and Leeds due back sooner or later even that could be a challenge. As the saying goes, they can spend all the money and buy all the Argentinian internationals they want but they can't buy history..

N.B. Arsenal moved into a 60,000 capacity stadium eight years ago, Liverpool plan to start redeveloping Anfield up to around 60,000 capacity this coming summer, and Spurs and Chelsea are also currently looking to build 65k seaters from scratch. Christ even West Ham will be playing in front of 54,000 seats in a few seasons time. City's upgrade means little more than that they won't be left behind.


Should really be getting 5 million at least.

If the match on Saturday peaked at over 6m, despite being fairly dull and the result never really being in question, tonight's match should get that as a bare minimum.

No. The Voice UK launched with two of the best-known presenters amongst younger generations in the industry, Rising Star needs to be on that sort of level not looking to a former backing singer to Nicole Sheerzinger who's just squeezing every last drop of money out of failing to win I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here two years ago.

A good programme in a good timeslot makes all the difference. Lewis went up fir its last series when it was moved from Wednesday to Monday and became an hour long show.

FYI. The Death In Paradise rating for Tuesday 11th February is on course to be a record for the show. I can say no more but hopefully DMN will have it tomorrow.

Really looking forward to its return - very good programme, despite its simplicity. Should get 2m+ on Friday's in a perfect slot.

I predict 8.9m

Exactly - DCI Banks had passed me by until now, but I tuned in for the first episode of this series mainly because of weak opposition elsewhere and some really strong promotion by ITV - I've very quickly become quite a fan of the show.

I think that is what it will end up at. It's looking like it will anyway. I thought Death In Paradise would do well to get similar ratings to last year with the change in lead....but to surpass it!!

I'm glad more are discovering DCI Banks. It's very good. Rating better than The Bletchley Circle did in that timeslot.

I might give it a go. Stephen Tominkson is not my cup of tea tbf. It would be good if ITV invest in more non-crime drama.

I have always liked it but the first 2 parter was about as good as its been. Did not like this weeks as much though.

Thats really not that difficult though is it?

Law and Order UK has had plenty of slots to become a hit, I just think it will continue to be a solid show for ITV.

Over in the US, Showtime have renewed Shameless for another season, shown on More4 here in a stupid late Sunday night slot. A great remake for a change, and I enjoy it more than the UK version if I am honest.

Story for the French showing of Broadchurch, looks like the first 3 eps were shown so a great average and looks like a french remake in the works as well: http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/i...067838.article

Forget Truckers. Tompkinson is very good in this. Try it.

Is it just me that sees absolutely no merit in this program at all. Apart from the fact it is all set up and filmed many times over till they get something they like - who cares what a series of oddballs think. I was bored after half of 1 episode - sorry just dont get the appeal.

Cruel! Very cruel!

I had forgotten it - till you mentioned it again!!

I was talking to a colleague at work today who I know is a Corrie fan and she said she had started watching EE again because Corrie was boring and she didn't like the Hayley/Roy story.Multiply that by even a few hundred and it's significant.

I think we all tried to forget it!

Good to see two dramas (DIP and DCI Banks) growing in their 3rd years.

Perhaps it will remind channels that not all series get stellar ratings from the get-go. Some are slow burners rating-wise, but given the chance can still get there in the end.

Quick question. I know iPlayer catch up doesn't count to viewing figures yet, but if you're watching live on iPlayer, does that count?

Interesting, but could go either way. Always think a show like that is generally best served up for desert, so when offered as the main course it might not quite do the job you expect.


Absolutely agree. It was one show which was so British (and so Northern) I didn't think it had a chance stateside, but Showtime have done a fantastic job and it helps that it isn't on a network, so isn't a sanitised version. And of course being a US series the cast are locked in to multi-series contracts so it's going in a different direction and is pretty much a show in it's own right now.

No. The only viewing that counts as far as BARB are concerned, at present, is viewing made on a television set.

Timeslot is also key but both Death In Paradise and DCI Banks held steady in the ratings. DIP had very tough competition for series 1 but it held up well. That showed that it deserved another outing.

No, same as with Des Lynam, it was considered a disaster when he moved - and he certainly missed some massive events like the 2000 Olympics and 2000 Today* - but he made absolutely loads of money from it and he was nearing retirement anyway so didn't want to do loads. Sports presenters are always at the mercy of the contracts, it's part of the job - when Des Lynam joined ITV they were absolutely in the ascendancy, the Champions League was getting millions of viewers (I know in 1998/99 fifteen of the top twenty sports programmes on TV were football matches on ITV) and they nabbed the Premier League, but when Des left their portfolio had whittled away to very little and the Beeb were flying. Swings and roundabouts, really, it probably swung back to ITV at the end of the last decade, now back to the Beeb.

Of course even if Chiles does go after they lose the live Champions League rights, he's still been there for five years, and if you offer anyone five years of full-time TV work they'd take it. If I was told when I got my current job I'd be there for five years but then have to look for something else I'd have taken it (I have done it for more than five years, but the analogy still stands).

It isn't actually a record for Chiles doing three consecutive tournaments as Des did three in a row for ITV, Euro 2000 and 2004 and the 2002 World Cup, and Brian Moore did four World Cups in a row. But Chiles is the first since 1986 to do two World Cups.

* Of course, when they announced 2000 Today it was said that Des Lynam and Jill Dando would be the main presenters, although when we got to December 1999, neither were available, for rather different reasons.


I'd envisage rather more crossover between Call The Midwife and The Musketeers, though, then there is between Call The Midwife and Top Gear.


I know what you mean, but I doubt Britain can do better at the Winter Olympics than they're doing at the moment, unless there was a massive change in Britain's climate which made it easier to participate in winter sports (and hence every channel would get millions more viewers because it'd be freezing cold). It's not much of an argument, though, the World Cup would rate better if England had any chance of winning it, but they don't.


That's not Ortis, that's Ore Oduba.


Yes, it was a new Simpsons, although I'd not have known if I hadn't watched Moone Boy and noticed it being billed as new in the Radio Times next to it. It was because it was "slightly more grown up than usual", according to the announcer, presumably as it revolved around Moe trying to hang himself. Might have been more use if it was at 9pm as a lead-in for Moone Boy.

Shame about Moone Boy but it's been ages since the last run and it was a pretty thankless slot. I'm not sure if it's promoted all that well, though, you might assume from the trailer it's a family show but it's got swearing in it, I guess it's a bit like Outnumbered in that regard. But sadly it's never going to get much of an audience on Sky One. And though I like it, I would like it more if I could talk about it with someone or recommend it to my parents, who I'm sure would like it, but they haven't got Sky.

Incidentally you may note there's another pull-out Sky thing in this week's Radio Times highlighting all their original programming, but while we've been discussing BBC1 having stuff on the shelf for ages, Mr Sloane is down as being shown in "summer" and another programme featured is billed starting in 2015! Put like this, Sky's output looks quite impressive, but it spans three channels, several genres, original and imported programming and a whole year.

What was DIP's competition for series 1?

The massive payday usually makes up for a disastrous move to another channel....not always enough to keep away the stench of failure though.


I think the crossover with Midwife and Musketeers is minimal compared to Midwife and Selfridge. I think Musketeers is more male skewing so has more in common with the Top Gear audience.


No they can't and that is why ratings are what they are. Until we get winners in higher profile events like ice skating 3-5m is the level. Somebody once said to me that if they ran The Olympics they would just hand out gold medals to make people train harder. That amused me. There could be something in that.


Moone Boy doesn't do great ratings anyway. Launched with over 400k and the audience halved for episode 2. Dare I say that Moone Boy is at its level. It followed Modern Family which got 400k so the lead-in wasn't a problem.