The thing is, during quite times and Summer the BBC have more 4m+ and dependable shows to fall back on. ITV rely on YBF rpt's and drama rpt's.

I feel next year will be stronger with more shows coming through and no World Cup, but only if they get their heads together, get a decent scheduler and get rid of Stuart Blackburn.

I would've found ITV's Summer less awful if Corrie wasn't so bad. Its the only thing that was holding up their schedule.

What's more normal? protecting a person or protecting an inaminate TV station?

Game, set and match Wizzywick!

I may have missed it, do we know what slot 'Cilla' is going to air in, and what it will be up against. It does look like quite a landmark drama for this season, but having said that so did Tommy Cooper.

Unless you actually know Samuel then he's just an internet troll, it'd be like repeatedly leaping to the defence of one of those Justin Bieber fangirls. He loves stirring it, he doesn't need protecting.

In any event, Samuel spends all day "protecting" an inanimate TV station and attacking another with a degree of vitriol unmatched by anyone in the history of this thread. So he's failing your "normal" criteria!

I believe it will be on Monday at 9pm on the 15th September against a weaker New Tricks.

Cilla begins on September 15th (a Monday) against New Tricks. It'll do well enough because biopics always attract a certain level of interest. Might not be in mega hit territory, but I don't think it'll flop either.

As an aside, both RS and GeorgeS appear on page 1 of Ratings thread 1 back in 2007(ignoring the prelude) along with current contributors ronant and Dancc (also the originator Mitch 123 and curiously two or three posters listed as banned).
Im actually quite proud to be on page two. Its a long time ago now.

Takeaway was opposite The Voice in 2013 and held up well. Broadchurch would have done well against whatever, probably. Splash! benefited from poor competition and The Voice blitzed it completely in 2014. Catchphrase and Off Their Rockers' decline is strange this year while neither Takeaway or Britain's Got Talent took off in quite the same way as last year. I can't remember what the heck ITV aired over the summer months but I'm pretty certain it was better than what we had this year.


The schedule would have been awful with a strong Coronation Street, though.

The way to change direction in a thread is to introduce other topics for discussion. This place has always been a few ratings with some discussion. This thread only started due to the ratings being copied and pasted from Gallifrey Base. If anybody wants dry ratings there are always the DS ratings reports.

Ratings are put here as posters choose to not because they have to. If there are no ratings there isn't much else to do except discuss what has been posted or what scheduling or commissions might work.

Firstly, I'm not a troll. And secondly, I don't spend "all day protecting a tv station". I worked a long hard day today, making myself some well earned money, and then after a pretty hectic day I made a few-paragraph post at about 6.30pm. I havent been on here all day, as youd or others suggested. Between 10am-6pm, 8hours throughout today, I was not 'dictating the discussion'. Other people dictated the discussion about XF's poor ratings because they indeed were poor and was the standout rating from yesterday [for the wrong reasons]. It was nothing to do with me that there was so much discussion about the dire XF figure.

The only people I know personally are the real ones in the real world: real, solid, physical people. Samuel could be a chimpanzee for all I know and you might be a duck! Trolls are subjective. If you don't mind the way a poster expresses his view then he's not a troll. If you get offended by it then he is. Samuel isn't a troll by the way. He's just Samuel. I don't slag him off behind his back to other posters. I do it directly to him by replying to his posts that I find annoying. You can get surprisingly good discussions by doing that.

Oh yeah I know, but it would make the schedule seem a bit more worthwhile with a strong drama, than one that is just plodding along without a single thought to the quality.

Another thing is that this thread used to be a centre of accuracy, our own ratings charts were created, ironing out Barb irregularities such as missing programmes, single shows cut into two, or two shows joined into one, and ensuring fairness and consistency.

Thesedays certain people actually enjoy inaccurate ratings and hope they are perpetuated. As long as it goes their way, it doesn't matter. Repeately quoting the wrong figures even though they are corrected each time by someone else, hoping the wrong ones will be picked up elsewhere.

I know we will go down this route when doing the chart of the year. The different methods of World Cup rating breakdowns would have been ironed out one way or the other way in the past, whereas now it won't be and we will have pages of gloating and 'haha serves them right' type posts.

I miss George although he used to give me a hard time

Calm down love, you'll give yourself high blood pressure!

That is a significant moment. Due to Celebrity Big Brother?

Downton Abbey is a 8 part series and starts on 21st September so will finish on 9th November. Cilla will finish on 29th September so they could fit in Grantchester (six episodes) which would end on 10th November which could mean I'm A Celebrity... will launch on 16th November.

But where does Great Fire fit if that is the case? There's not enough Wednesday nights between Scott and Bailey and I'm A Celebrity... if it does launch then so I guess it will replace Chasing Shadows on Thursday's.

Grantchester is going to be ITV's hit of the Autumn. Good time to launch it too. Towards the end of a wavering, formulaic and yet dull New Tricks, darker nights, Autumn well and truly set in. Should do well.

Could they possibly be keeping The Great Fire for the run up to Christmas?

Possibly, very solid officials for CBB's first week, it could be either that, or Ch4 not having a good week.

As for X Factor, yes, it was low, but it was one rating, it could be a series where it increases, however next Sat will be difficult. I predict (with +1), it will get 7.8m, against Strictly's 8.2m.

Potentially - maybe it'll take the Monday slot after I'm A Celebrity... so there is some quality in December. But on the other hand, isn't that a bit close to Christmas for ITV? Money wise, they may ensure it airs before I'm A Celebrity...

I think you may be over estimating "Strictly Come Dancing" launch programme. It probably will be mid 6 million against "The X Factor" it has taken a while to build an audience for the launch. There doesn't seem to be much goodwill towards "The X Factor" from the media either, almost willing it to fail, I dunno if the press are waiting for Simon Cowell to fall. I don't watch the show but what else would ITV replace it with and a strong ITV has always helped BBC create better programmes and compete harder.

Didnt someone suggest The Great Fire could be stripped - its only 4 episodes?

It got 8.4m last year so that'd be a hell of a drop, regardless of competition from a differently-skewing show on the other side. Consolidated to 9.53m.

Right! Ah well I'm massively underpridicting then. I feel it can't beat "The X Factor" and the audience will split. The results show never did as well against "Coronation Street" and I expected the launch to be equally low.