A good description. Im all for choice but I think there are far too many channels with their fingers in the commercial pie now. Too much Cr@p tv -not forgetting Cr@p tv +1 ofcourse. ITV1 has suffered the most over time from 50% + share down to 16%. I don't think there has been much benefit to the viewing public in that statistic.

Can I put in a request to D.M.N. please for the consolidated numbers and shares for Series 1 of Plebs in Mar/Apr 2013? I remember we always have disagreements over whether it was a flop or settled at a reasonable level.

It started at around 1.3million consolidated but ended up around half of that. It shed loads of viewers. Itv pretends it's a hit but it's not really in terms of ratings. It's no Inbetweeners, that's for sure. And they're stupid - they didnt repeat series one of Plebs on the main channel so it wont attract any new viewers. Expect tonight's episode to be down a lot from the first series launch.

Also I see Release the Hounds was back. Not sure why. That was another ratings flop with the one off last year overnighting at only 300k. Itv pretends it's a hit too but it did badly in the ratings.

Wiki has these ratings

1.16
0.94
0.80
0.69
Less than 0.59
Less than 0.66

So Plebs is unlikely to start with anything near 500k in the overnights. I'll go for around 420k inc +1.

For a brand new scripted show, with a period setting and the high expenses involved filming abroad and the costumes, that would be a very bad rating for Plebs. Sometimes channels try to pretend a show is a hit like Channel4 did with Utopia, they believe their own hype and think the niche awards being given out to these shows will help boost the ratings [although they in reality dont]. Ratings wise, Plebs is not really a hit at all. One could actually spin the first series ratings and argue it was one of the biggest comedy disappointments of the year with 50pct of the launch audience abandoning the show in 4 weeks.

Maybe so, but there's no point pretending it's going to get 1m so you can then say I told you so when it gets less than 500k in the morning.

Cilla was superb tonight and Plebs is equally great.

ITV will have the top two dramas this week.

I don't think Plebs is an expensive show at all? Its got an ITV2 budget to start with... its filmed in Bulgaria which is dirt cheap to begin with anyway

much to the annoyance of the anti itv brigade.

For a digital program, it is very expensive. This was confirmed in Broadcast interviews with the production team and Angela Jain [head of Itv digital] who said it was a huge risk for the broadcaster due to the cost and ambition of the project.

Shows like Plebs get half the audiences of TOWIE and cost about 5 times more. From a ratings and business perspective, Itv2 once shows like TOWIE and Real housewives get shipped off to Itv Be, will be in a shaky position.

DS ratings reports really are awful. To clear up something today...

Sunday Night At The Palladium - 3.84m (19.4%) + 126,000 (0.5%)


Looking at BARB, average weekly viewing for week 35 was down 8% year on year.


All over the place this year - Saturdays drifting slightly lower (but still strong vs last year), Sundays picking up a bit across the auditions (but still well off the pace of last year).


It dropped to 7.1m on Sunday against the launch (exc +1), I'll be amazed if it doesn't go a good bit lower than that on Friday. Gogglebox is potentially as big an issue as Strictly.


IIRC the repeat significantly outrated the original airing and that got it the series order. It's a fun, different idea and maybe it will find an audience over time. I suspect it won't have a flying start.

They've got to commission something. It's very easy for this thread to grumble about everything but there would be nothing on the way some people talk.

Well i've never seen that and it doesn't appear to look at all expensive. I don't think Barry From EastEnders charges too much to appear.

Plebs, with its current ratings, is an unprofitable project. It is made to try and improve the brand image for Itv2. However there has to be a balance between making a loss and improving brand image. Ratings of sub 500k simply arent good enough for a scripted project of this nature. It'd kind of help if the show was repeated on Itv main channel to help off-set the costs, but it's not even re-run on the main channel [unlike the Job lot which is getting an Itv1 late night re-run soon following its Itv2 showing].

Plebs won a few awards here and there.But as we've seen with plenty of shows, awards doesnt necessarily translate to ratings. The viewers from series 1 voted with their remotes, half of whom stopped watching throughout the run. Genuine hit digital comedy shows like Gavin and Stacey and The Inbetweeners never experienced such declines in their first series, they were both steady, meaning they had solid foundations to grow from series 2 onwards. Plebs series 2 is launching on very weak foundations.

Cilla was great tonight. Loving it!

Anyone have the official CBB final week incl +1 figures? Wondering what the average was.

i agree superb. i am sure some posters on here wish it was on Bbc1.

It really was, this is turning into the best drama of the year so far,reflected by high ratings and will win awards as well.

Well the praise for Our Zoo has been posted here in great numbers, so I think Cilla deserves similar praise. Having not watched it last week I watched it tonight as there wasn't much on. It really is a superb drama, which can be enjoyed even if you don't think of the story being about Cilla Black. The music is fantastic (it's rather ironic that Sheridan Smith is a better singer than Cilla herself ) and after watching it I can see why it appealed to many. It deserves a fantastic rating. Once again Sheridan Smith gives an outstanding performance.

I think the producers said on record, Plebs costs peanuts to produce. They use a standing set in Bulgaria and film within 2 weeks or so.

Comparing it to the production values of Utopia is stupid!

I thought the first 2 eps were brilliant!

I saw it in here but where did the 400k come from? It didn't need tape-checking and ITV Media says 6.238m including +1; DS says 6.05m excluding +1. So it's more like 0.19m on +1.

Is someone getting desperate. I don't remember anything like this when Cuckoo returned with less that 600k.

We won't be able to tell much from Plebs' overnights anyway; things on multichannel tend to timeshift a lot.

Inbetweeners wasn't a hit in the first series, it rated quite poorly. If you'd have had your way and it had aired on ITV2, it would have been axed and never become the big thing it became.

Funny how with ITV2 launching a new comedy series tonight we get all this over the top 'mark my words' stuff. When BBC3 started a new series of Bad Education, it was barely mentioned.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/featur...ontentID=40611


This article discusses the production costs of Plebs. it seems they used Bulgaria as it was cheap and have recycled old scenary from other film productions to cut costs. Most of the set is polystyrene.