The Great Fire is one I'm interested in and will most definetely check it out. Could be a big Autumn hit. Not so keen on Grantchester because it just seems like a prime time rip off of Father Brown and frankly, ITV should be looking for original ideas. One aspect of ITV that I don't like in the same way as BBC1 is their over reliance on the same celebrities. When regionalised ITV was in place there were so many stars and a whole variety of different talented faces. Now it's the same half a dozen presenters time and again. As I say though, BBC1 are just as bad in this situation.

Oh please tell me this happened and there's a transcript of the conversation somewhere:

'999 what's you emergency?'
'A tram has just come of a viaduct and crashed into a corner shop, its devastation everwhere, Rita's dying, its too much to bear'
'Have you tried turning the TV off madam'

ITV wouldn't need to be defended so much if it wasn't being relentlessly attacked in this thread constantly post after post from every possible angle. If someone attacked BBC (or Channel 5) as often you can bet there would be some other people who wouldn't let the posts go unchallenged.

You only notice my posts because it goes against your agenda, you are happy for this thread to just be a long line of posts slagging off ITV day after day?

No wonder we've lost so many good members from this thread over the last year or so.

I'm not sure if it was for the tram crash but someone definitely called 999 when Alan Bradley had found Rita in Blackpool. It was on the Corrie Top 50 Moments show that aired over the anniversary.

EDIT: The 999 call wasn't on the show - just a mention of it!

I understand where wizzywick was coming from. Andy, theres no need to say how apparently great Coro/BGT were on this thread right after the episodes aired. I never come on this thread to say how great a longrunning BBC1 show is right after it's aired [even if I think so] and generally you dont see it happening for BBC1 programs besides one fanatical EE viewer.

ITV need to move away from celeb travelogue series, daytime is a mess and needs fixing. I'm hearing good things about Grantchester and BBC1 will rue the day they didn't give Father Brown a primetime repeat. Looking forward to The Great Fire and Cilla might be a pleasant surprise with Sheridan Smith.

As much as I like BBC1 it does feel like a channel not sure what it should be. Too much dull factual with no wow factor, sitcoms not working often and the scheduling is too rigid.

BBC2 have a few of those same problems too. Their drama does well (forgot to mention 37 Days as a BAFTA contender), but comedy and factual needs more oomph. Factual on BBC2 is too Middle England in appeal. Sometimes I think BBC2 would do better at getting the youth demo than BBC3. Channel 4 has E4 to get younger viewers but still has programmes on the main channel to do that. BBC2 should have been doing that alongside BBC3 in my view.

Though at least he waits until the episodes have aired before commenting. I believe Let's Get Ready to Tumble is going to be the greatest television show ever if certain posts are to be believed.

Fair enough. I just dont understand why there is so much negativitiy about Tumble. It's got a lot of things going for it [as I listed the other day]. I can see it working, for sure.

I think a lot of this has to do with some of the audience being lonely women who see the show as a big part of their life. Indeed many viewers will have been watching since 1960 and it does trend older.

Two fanatical EE viewers.

Ever read the thread around 10pm every Tuesday for the last few weeks? Not that I'm begrudging it, just pointing out that it does happen.

Every Saturday during the Winter at about 8:30ish?

If the BBC present is properly I can it being a success; if not at Strictly standards at least a returnable light entertainment format. It is as though channels are taking an aspect of The Games and are trying to make a series out of it - first ITV with Splash! and now BBC One with Tumble.

ITV has its faults, but I think it is a lot better than it was eight years ago in the Charles Allan era. They do seem to have slashed the amount of reality shows with zelebs to one, which still does very good business for them, they've upped the drama budget, started showing programmes like Perspectives, which would have been off limits in the noughties, and increased the amount of factual. Even ITV 2 has really chopped the amount of reality shows in favour of American sitcoms and films.

Or basically just one nutter.

You are letting your hate for ITV soaps cloud your judgement again, suggesting that this unhinged behaviour with the 999 call comes with the territory and should be expected.

The age demographics posted earlier showed that Corrie wasn't as far behind EE in young viewers as you'd think. It's certainly not 90% housebound 80 year old women that are at deaths door, like you and others often imply.

There were a few acts on BGT towards the start who didn't live up to their auditions and it felt a bit flat but the second half was a vast improvement.

Was Eastenders on Bank Holiday Monday last year? That's the only obvious factor I can see hitting the performance show, paired with a slight decline for the series so far. The results could be in a lot more danger if Corrie underperforms as it has done so far this year (and in recent years the results have been vulnerable enough anyway).



Wading into the current Ratings Thread soap opera arc...

From what I can tell, you've been leading the "save Samuel" patrol against those who are defensive when Samuel posts (and you're perhaps right, trolls are often best ignored). Except now you're picking up on Andy making an innocuous comment? Is this thread going to become equally obsessed with Andy now? I'm not sure I want to read wizzywick being obsessed with Andy being obsessed with Samuel.

I've been reading a bit less recently which means reading through a couple of days worth of posts at a time and at least for me, people being defensive or positive about a channel or show is far less tiring to read than a relentless assault on a channel.

Let's Get Ready To Tumble sounds like Splash with gymnastics. I really do want to be pleasantly surprised but this is BBC1 light entertainment so I always fear the worst!

But in its defence, these words from former BBC LE producer Wayne Garvie.

https://twitter.com/garvie1/status/392348770215919616

"@garvie1: @MsLisaCampbell @tcmbigcheese all I would say is: they laughed at me when we launched strictly, The Times ripped me apart, now look at it!"

Not to forget the 'Free Deirdre' campaign in the 90s!

BGT Monday night semi final overnight ratings from previous years incl +1:

2010- 10.7m
2011- 11.3m
2012- 9.8m
2013- 10.3m

I dont normally state inc +1 ratings but have done here because I know tomorrow morning it will be the inc +1 ratings which will be widely reported. So... will be interesting to see how BGT rates for today's episode. 9.8m is the lowest it's gone since the current scheduling took place. I have a feeling it wont make pretty reading tomorrow morning because the recent BGT trend hasnt been good at all...

Charles Allen was good at merging ITV regions, apart from that ITV under him wasn't very good to watch at all. Much better now. It's not perfect, no channel is, but it's the best it has been in years.

No, EastEnders wasn't on Bank Holiday Monday last year (which I didn't take into account when completing my predictions for the DSRPG!) as the episode was moved to Wednesday to try and boost Waterloo Road and Frankie, which aired opposite an England match. For competition on the Monday, Britain's Got Talent had Antiques Roadshow, a Miranda repeat and The Queen: A Passion for Horses presented by Claire Balding.

The slight series-on-series decline can be written off because of the early starts IMO as the share has held up fine if not better than last year. I hope they move it back to 8pm next year.

Also to get in before you do. Good Morning Britain will have got its lowest EVER audience this morning, probably no more than 200k as it was a bank holiday and most people had a lie in.

Meanwhile Breakfast will also have been low, but less so as it was an extension of BBC1's election coverage that people who were up will have turned to.

These ratings will tell us nothing more than we already know, but feel free to debate the same points for the 21st time.

GMB will also be low all week, Breakfast will also dip a bit, but less so as its audience is not as effected by school run mums not doing the school run.

Oh please. I must be logging on to the parallel universe ratings thread each day, then - itv is certainly NOT attacked on here. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that 90% of the thread comprises posts defending / discussing itv ratings, looking forward to itv commissions and shows. Just one recent example: Good Morning Britain - so much concern / hope / interest in the itv morning show from virtually everyone on here. The only person who dares criticise itv ratings is pretty much instantly shouted down.

EDIT: case in point - just seen your defensive post about GMB ratings above.

The problem I have with all these shows is that they're all rejected ideas. Everyone pitched every sport or skill imaginable 10 years ago when celebrities doing things was all the rage. They're just coming back around because of Splash... and we saw how long that particular bubble lasted.


Yes, with the Sunday show being down a whopping 1.6% from last year and the auditions as a whole down a massive 3.2% on last year. I mean, the auditions shows have lost 1.5% of their audience in the past 3 years... man the life boats.

(And we'll just ignore the fact that overall TV viewing is down a lot more than that this year).

((And tomorrow morning you'll probably ignore the fact that there was no EE last year.))

It would have worked after the Olympics but now it will be worse than Splash

I think ITV had been hurt by the On Digital fiasco, a resurgent BBC One and the growth of satellite television in this era as well. However, Allen and Simon Shapps had this view that ITV should mostly concentrate on the bottom of the viewing market and it really hurt them. Indeed in 2006 they were so clueless they ran repeats of old Paul O Grady against his new show on Channel 4, which benefitted no one
Nowadays I think ITV is better. A Bruce Forsyth tribute to Sammy Davies Junior is surely as worthy as a similar programme on BBC Four, but again because it's ITV, who should really be showing Kerry Katona Meets Katie Price in some people's eyes, it won't be accepted.
Yes I make Corrie jokes, but having to endure this until I was 16 and being bored rigid by it as a kid, might explain some things. However, it makes money and is big.

... But I assume it will be alright to discuss "EastEnders in crisis" tomorrow morning when its figure is down owing to the BGT clash? That won't be telling us anything new, either, but hey, it's BBC-bashing, so that's OK.