Samuel only cares about the absolute number. It could be 10 million prisoners and murderers watching it'll still be good news. The only time demographics come into play is when ITV beat BBC1 and the rating gets written off for being made up of the lowest of the low.

Excluding +1, Law and Order Uk has averaged 3.97m for episodes this series which havent faced Line of Duty. The competition it faced was a cheap documentary about monkeys on BBC1. The two episodes it actually faced a BBC2 drama, it averaged only 3.3m. SO considering it is facing a BBC1 drama tonight, it is extremely unlikely to match the 3.97m average it's been getting the last few weeks against Monkey Bandits. It will be knocked down to at least below 3.7m.


The Housewives with children thing is spin. Itv just like any other channel want as many viewers as posisble from whatever demographic. Itv never talked about demographics pre-2006 when GMTV was winning its slot for years. However because BBC1 started beating Itv at breakfast time from 2006 onwards, Itv started quoting Housewives with Childrens ratings because they were still just about beating Breakfast among that audience [although that may not be the case anymore]. The most important thing is getting the biggest audience, whatever age they come from. Trust me, Itv would prefer getting 1.6million viewers with Breakfast's demographics than 0.8-1.0million viewers with the skews Daybreak currently has. Breakfast also has an upmarket audience, Daybreak's is quite downmarket and struggles to attract male viewers. Male viewers are quite important and a difficult demographic to reach, so BBC Breakfast does well attracting them.

Two examples of the BBC's much celebrated high quality journalism on show there, doesn't it make you proud. The entertainment news section of BBC News does the BBC a disservice and fails to meet the BBC's own guidelines of being trustworthy and impartial. Presumably all the entertainment journalists trained at The Sun.

The only saving grace is that it generally only gets as far as the website and doesn't make it onto the TV bulletins, although that isn't always the case.

Well 3.97m to 1 decimal place is 4m not 3.9m. And I doubt Monkey Planet was cheap, Law and Order has done an ok job in a tough slot for drama to succeed on ITV, where other shows such as Whitechapel crumbled. Wednesday night and Sunday night content really should be changed around, the 2 hour dramas would benefit from a Corrie lead in, and Law and Order showed last summer that it does much better on Sundays at 9pm, where ITV is known for showing drama

Don't slag off the Sun too much, they have run quite a few pieces in support of GMB this week, today's was rubbishing the 1million pound pay packet for Susannah Reid, apparently she is only being paid £400k.

When people say ignore the Samuel comments, its exceedingly difficult when he bashing ITV every other post. I've never seen so much bias in all my life, even Robbie and George were not this bad. It ruins the thread completely. At least most are more subtle.

Just put him on ignore - I have. He really is tedious and boring. He posts the same crap day after day. I'm more of a lurker on this thread and he used to ruin my enjoyment reading it - but no more , now I have him on ignore.

Hahahaha!

I thought that. But then I personally think itv's branding in general is pretty ghastly at the moment and appear to be in the minority, so I wasn't sure if it was just me.

Fed up with this stuff about "the BBC" trying to damage Good Morning Britain with that story about salaries. This is based on a quote from Nick Owen in a feature in the Radio Times about breakfast TV in general, which also features interviews with Fiona Phillips and Susanna Reid herself, and the point he's making is that sometimes parachuting in big name presenters is more trouble than its worth, based on his experience of the disastrous launch of Good Morning Britain.

Nick Owen's views are not that of the BBC.

As for why it's on the BBC News website, it's because the entertainment section does X reports on television every week and this is interesting enough to get on there. Nobody with any kind of sense would suggest the BBC News website has any interest in trying to undermine ITV, because the BBC is not one massive homegenous entity where everyone from the Director General to the toilet cleaner is desperately trying to get one up on ITV. Otherwise the BBC News website would not simultaneously be running stories about Top Gear being criticised and Jamaica Inn being totally unintelligible, among the myriad stories it runs about the BBC and its personnel every week. If anything it's too even-handed about the BBC.

I was about to post something similar but you have put it so much better than I would have. The story about GMB is not even critical while as you said the Top Gear story is critical of the BBC show. I think you really need your ITV rose tinted specs on to attack BBC journalism based on those stories.

"@overnightstv: #MasterChef made it over the 5m (5.1m/23.5%) mark on BBC1 at 8pm, winning its timeslot http://t.co/Gu75jKfL7Z"

#jamaicainn finishes with 4.1m viewers, 2m fewer than opening episode after 100s complaints about inaudible dialogue #bbc

Masterchef, in all its guises, likely to be around for years to come - very solid performer.

And Graham beats Rowan to the Jamaica Inn ratings guessing prize!

More people have probably heard of this show with the 'news' reports than actually watched it!

I have put several people on ignore here - SamuelW isn't one of them, at least he posts facts, links and ratings. The ones I ignore write utter bilge - and without them the thread flows smoothly. SamuelW does wind up some people, but he doesn't do personal attacks - another reason I ignore posters here.

You made my day, I think I guessed 4.2m on the DSRPG

Masterchef growing a bit of momentum even against Corrie on Fridays. Really solid performer.

That is really good figure for Masterchef, they are still only in the Heat stages. The changes made this year have really worked IMO. It feels much fresher and they finally seem to have come up with a format that suits 2 one hour shows and one half hour show. Really enjoying it this year, Love the old winners coming back as judges.

Do you get points to being 100k out in the ratings prediction game?

The return of #Derek with #RickyGervais to C4 at 10pm attracted excellent 1.5m/8.2%, and 183.5K/1.9% on C4+1 http://t.co/Gu75jKfL7Z

#underofferestatesagentsonthejob put in a strong showing with 1.7m/8.1% at 8pm on BBC2 http://t.co/Gu75jKfL7Z

From overnights.tv

I don't put anybody on ignore as I think I could miss some good facts. I just find it very easy to ignore when you skim read. There are others here that are far more annoying anddefinitely more insulting than Samuel around here.

Too many posters are getting worked up over nonsense.

Great figure for MC really enjoying it this year.

Well good for you!

Masterchef always performs well each year. Never thought this Sunday teatime show would become a primetime hit.