But I bet that wasn't saying much!

Very odd day for ITV: the usual low-rating bilge in the morning (anything for Aled Jones?), probably well below 5% for the tennis and then super-powered shares throughout the evening and past midnight. That's the right way around, I suppose.

EDIT: I note Channel 4's sideswipe at Channel 5 there ("all four main terrestrial channels").

BBC won't need to pay to broadcast it at this rate.

The rights go to the highest bidder. If Channel 4 pay they'll get them.

That is not always the case.

Will Channel 4 be that keen to renew off the back of some of these performances? I know they're putting a brave face on it but...

The racing industry needs to have a rethink. C4 having everything isn't good for the profile of the sport.

But wasn't it the BBC's decision to drop the Grand National, Derby and other big racing events, not the other way round ? They wanted to use the money to strengthen their contracts in other areas like the FA Cup. But I agree if you want the widest possible audience for your sport you go with BBC or ITV ( for example Wimbledon have been with the BBC since 1937 apart from the war years obviously). ITV shared Wimbledon for a while in the 60s then dropped out.

They were outbid by Channel 4:


http://www.theguardian.com/sport/201...cing-channel-4

C4 seem to be cursed with any sports coverage.

They haven't let Ortis Deiey anywhere near it have they?


"Jessica Ennis. Goodnight"

It was comedy gold thats for sure !!!

Astonishingly small sums really. The Beeb were paying less than £200,000 per day's action.

I wonder how snooker compares. That provides hours upon hours of decently-rating coverage, probably for similarly tiny sums when set against the likes of football.

Although of course you need to add in production costs.

In no way can any of the key football contracts be considered value for money now.

Definitely, similar to the states where their sports rights are increasingly becoming loss leaders just to get bums on seats no matter what the price.

Channel 4 destroys everything it touches,they should have left the coverage with Highflyer a high quality British company,but they wanted a flashy youth orientated show,
which was obviously a non starter.As I understand it most of its core audience have deserted it.
Another brilliant decision by Jay Hunt.

One of the more puzzling decisions C4 has made in their recent history was to switch to IMG. They could have refreshed it without ditching a production company that had served the programme and the audience so well for so many years.

The first time they did Soccer Aid, in 2006, they had a week's worth of build-up, this was when the news was still at 10.30 and they had programmes at 10pm and 11pm every night. The two teams played wam-up matches and they showed highlights from them. As they appear to have given up on post-10pm programmes, that now seems to have been replaced by one programme, but at 9pm. Definitely not 9pm viewing.


I am shocked that anyone is shocked at this, nobody is really expecting ITV to give it extensive coverage duplicating what the BBC does. If viewers wanted an alternative (for whatever reason) they could get it on Sky News so what is the point of doing it in triplicate? What else should a PSB cover? The Cenotaph? Well, they've never done that, even when ITV was in its pomp and had money coming out of its ears? Trooping The Colour? They've never done that either. This is not some mass lurch downmarket because it's expecting them to do something they never did to any great extent in the seventies and eighties.

They covered the D Day events ten years ago mostly because it was a Sunday, but they didn't do it live in 1994 when it was a Monday, so why complain now when they didn't then? What they did do, though, as they've done this time, is include anniversary stuff in their normal programming. In 1994 they did a D Day-related plotline in Coronation Street involving Percy Sugden going to Normandy. That almost certainly reached more people, and a wider range of people, than any of the dedicated D Day programming did. The same will be true here, including coverage in the news programme was a more effective use of resources for ITV and reached an audience who wouldn't have sought out extensive rolling coverage.

Yes, they cover Royal Weddings and stuff because they're events that appeal to the ITV audience in large numbers in a way the D Day commemorations, important and moving as they are, don't. Absolutely nobody on Friday was annoyed ITV didn't cover the D Day commemorations. They either watched them on the Beeb or Sky or didn't watch them at all. Real viewers simply find what channel is showing them and watch them. They're not in the business of demanding them to be on two channels so they can make comparisons. They'll watch it where it's shown.

ITV have never shown as many of these events as the Beeb, even when Alastair Burnet was about and ITN was a massive organisation, because there are some events where the Beeb coverage will do. To be shocked at them not doing it now is to have totally forgotten the past fifty years of ITV and expect it to be something it isn't.


Amazing, not something you'd get the BBC doi... oh.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007cjr8
New Year's Day 2007, 8.30pm, BBC1. New Year's Day, too, not the middle of June.

Anyway, what's the problem with a Corrie clip show? Thirty disposable minutes of television, purely there to amuse the Corrie audience.


Incidentally I noticed that on Friday they were actually running trailers saying "Coverage starts 1pm, the race 4pm", so my moans the other day are no longer applicable. Should have done that from the start, though. The Derby has never rated that well, though, it's never got anything like the audience of the Grand National because people simply don't find it that interesting (could be many reasons - I think a lot of people think flat racing is boring, maybe there aren't enough horses in it for the betting to be a fun punt), and of course when it moved to the Beeb in 2001 it was explicity sold as being an attempt to improve its popularity (same as when they moved it from Wednesday to Saturday).

Also doesn't help that there's umpteen other sports at the same time, but that's June for you. I think it's rather disingenious of them to say it had a higher peak than the other sport on the other channels because there's an obvious time for the coverage to peak - the few minutes the race is on, compared to an eighty minute rugby match or a two hour plus tennis match.

Speaking of sport, an interesting Broadcast sport chart...
1) England vs Peru (Friday, 19.30, ITV) 6.33m
2) Women's Cup Final (Sunday, 16.15, BBC2) 960,000
3) Triathlon (Saturday, 14.00, BBC1) 780,000
4) The Football League Show (Monday, 23.25, BBC1) 660,000
5) Channel Four Racing (Saturday, 13.40, C4) 550,000
6) IPL Cricket (Sunday, 15.00, ITV4) 510,000
7) TT Races (Sunday, 21.00, ITV4) 500,000
8) Cricket (Saturday, 19.00, C5) 460,000
9) TT Races (Saturday, 21.00, ITV4) 450,000
10) ODI Cricket (Saturday, 13.00, SS2) 430,000

Not a bad rating at all for the Women's Cup Final, especially when you compare it to the tennis on ITV. About 100k down on last year, though, I think.

Afternoon tennis on ITV did a lot better than I thought actually - average of 0.92m (9.3%) (inc +1). We know the peak was less than the Derby's 1.5m.

Aled Jones's Weekend plodded on with 0.16m (2.5%) inc +1.

Thanks to ronant for those.

Incidentally I noticed the timing of this worked out amazingly for ITV, the trophy being presented about a minute before the programme on the main channel was scheduled to end. Unlikely to be so lucky today, it seems.

God loves ITV.

A complete joke in here today, on the one hand some people need to know when to stop.

But others react to it creating bad feeling and ongoing bias.

At least it is over for another year.

Channel 4 is good for bread and butter meetings, but there is no sense of occasion when they host The Grand National and The Derby. Adverts up to the last minute before the off ruins them.

Yesterday afternoon's terrestrial sport in full:

BBC ONE
2.00-4.30pm: Rugby League - Challenge Cup Quarter-Final: 0.78m (8.2%)
5.00-7.20pm: F1 Qualifying: 2.43m (16.6%)

BBC TWO
11.20am-1.20pm: Wimbledon Classic - 2008 final: 0.32m (4.0%)
1.20-2.55pm: F1 Practice 2 repeat: 0.73m (8.2%)
2.55-4.05pm: F1 Practice 3 live: 0.85m (8.8%)

ITV
1.30-5.35pm: French Open Women's Final: 0.92m (9.3%)

C4
1.00-4.30pm The Derby: 0.77m (8.3%)

Formula One has been struggling in the ratings this season, which is strange because Hamilton has been competing for pole and doing well. F1 Broadcasting Blog website [which is run by DMN] has had a number of articles so far this season outlining that most of the races have been down year on year:

Wow! Everything really low. Seems the whole world isn't as obsessed with sport as the broadcasters seem to assume they are!