I really dont see why but its great numbers anyway. Might have been even bigger on Sundays although I know we have done that argument before.

Yes, ITV were the self styled "peoples channel" for years with good reason. However all of that affection and loyalty is gone. True they have several huge brands popping up now and again and weekdays rely heavily on the two ancient soaps -but if there are big audiences they just tend to disappear when the big brand show ends. ITV has lost its old identity and audience far quicker than it perhaps ought to have done imo.

It's becoming a full blown behemoth, huge numbers for a Wednesday evening, when was the last time we had an 8pm weekday show reach that level? Its a brilliant show and proof that it doesn't matter where you start with Ratings, its what you pick up along the way

Just gets better and better, especially with so many 1-3 millions flying around in primetime. And I presume its allowing BBC1 to win the night without any soap influence.

I agree, none of their big hitters( except DA) are new and the soaps, particularly Coronation St, which was once untouchable in the ratings, has fallen below 6 million in the ratings. Should TXF show another drop this autumn and IAC has a threadbare line up, then alaerm bells should be ringing at ITV as this over reliance on dated, low brow shows will have to end.

I watched The Great War and I thought it was really well done, the letters speak for themselves with their unique poignancy but the show was literally submerged in adverts which simply doesn't fit with subjects like this. Also people just don't associate ITV with this kind of programming any more-arguably it would have got a higher rating on BBC2.

Game Show Story was interesting and, despite ITV having many more big brand game shows over the years, Gen Game and Blankety Blank were probably the standout subjects. Two hours of ITV last night for me last night(with Dragons Den inbetween)-very rare.

One thing I didn't know was that Sir Bruce F was originally keener to do Family Fortunes than Play Your Cards Right. Bob Monkhouse got there before him though.

With the benefit of hindsight it seems that ITV should have used their allocation of 40 minutes of ads in Ofcom primetime (6-11pm) on all the other programmes and run The Great War commercial-free or close to it. As it turned out this probably would have suited both the viewers and the bean-counters.

Having said that, presumably the upmarket demos were good for The Great War.

Hope nobody's been waiting with baited breath for my views on this. Caught In The Act was absolutely the most shameless rip-off, it was also really late to the party as well, beginning in January 1992 when You've Been Framed had already been on for two years. Might have been alright if they'd done it a year earlier but no, it was absolutely shameless.

There was certainly a game aspect to it because one of the big complaints was that it didn't have enough clips in it (although of course You've Been Framed wasn't all clips for many years, because there wasn't enough material in the early days of camcorders). I think it might have been just a straight audience vote but stretched out to ridiculous lengths, I remember the punters standing behind monitors with their videos on them. And of course we had Shane The Legend Richie's banter with his "foreign correspondents". I think Shane was a bit of an acquired taste in those days, he had quite an aggressive act which put a lot of people off.

I think there's an episode of it on YouTube but I've never plucked up the courage to watch it. But it was a huge show, I think even the last episode, despite its appalling reviews, was clearing ten million. People were still watching it even if they hated it because the chance to see clips like this was still enough of a novelty to put up with the crap presentation. And it was also on Fridays at 8.30 which, previously, was a dreadful slot for the Beeb, pre-watershed Fridays were always weak on BBC1 in those days, Russ Abbott had been sent there on his way to the axe the previous autumn, so it wasn't just getting big ratings by default because it had no competition, people were specifically tuning in to see it. I reckon it must have doubled the slot average, at least.

I remember the Telegraph billing the last episode and saying "The ratings have been huge but the question is, will BBC1 dare to bring it back for a second series?", because it was so controversial for being derivative and brash and populist. And of course they didn't. But every time anyone slags off The Voice or Tumble for being crass or ratings chasing, I always think of Caught In The Act. It was a million times worse than anything you'd ever see now. I think it's maybe hard to explain for people who weren't there at the time. If you've never seen it, it really will shock you.

There's already been a few minor ones knocking around

Another week, another drop for The Mill:

S1 Ep1: 2.80M
S1 Ep2: 2.28M
S1 Ep3: 2.18M
S1 Ep4: 2.14M

S2 Ep1: 2.06M
S2 Ep2: 1.81M
S2 Ep3: 1.48M
S2 Ep4: 1.36M (new)

all overnights including +1

So is the second series really much worse than the first?

YBF in the Jeremy Beadle era was massive, pulling in 16 million viewers in 1992. Unlike the voiceover show it is now, there was an audience and the victims of the camcorder mishaps were invited on the show. Indeed it was quite good to watch then.

I think Five are brave going for a Monday night launch. I know they've enjoyed a very good run on that night this year but that's been driven by strong factual led schedules as opposed to live entertainment. And this is not a quiet Monday by any means with the return of New Tricks, which I accept by and large appeals to a different audience (much older, more upmarket) but it's still not ideal. Both itv and C4 have solid raters up against it as well so this will be a tough test. I think therefore it will be down slightly on the past two launches which rated as follows:

Wednesday 15th August 2012: 2.70M
Thursday 22nd August 2013: 2.83M

I will predict 2.5M but if the rumoured lineup is correct I think it will go on to rate in line with the above series. It's an interesting mix.

The Great War was brilliant,hope it picks up over the weeks,shows itv can make good stuff when they want to,think it was itv studios production.
I guess most of the factual thats now shown on ITV has been commissioned by Richard Klien,ex BBC 4 controller,always thought it was a brave move BBC4 to ITV factual.
Do we think he has influenced any change in ITVs factual output.

It's rare to see BBC1 that high on a Wednesday night. For years it has been 4/5m on a good day with Watchdog.

Yeah does anyone know when BBC one had this size of audience in Wednesday nught , never mind August!!! Amazing success from "The Great British Bake Off" its the best show in the box though. Its just so unique to any other programme at the moment. Very well deserved ratings. The spin off show was equally as good I'd like to see it on Fridays or Saturday evening on BBC one. Charlotte Moore doing well to pull this show over and validate its move. Willing "Doctor Who" to get equally as many viewers now.

I never watched the first one, the second series only caught my eye because of the inclusion of Peter. I still have that 80's mindset of "there's a black person on screen, must watch that".

It's kinda interesting, but it doesn't grip me.

Usually add a million on to what the civvy BB gets. I think people like to see a faded glamour model hack everyone off and get her come uppance over an unknown. It's still my view that CBB should outlive BB.

Stars At Your Service announced by C4.

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/n...-new-c4-series

This is actually quite a good concept and could do well. I think Channel 4 need an entertainment hit.

Excellent average of 860K (6.9%) recorded for BT Sport's Community Shield coverage.

Compares very favourably with the 2.7M average recorded by ITV last year (for a match which featured ratings magnet Manchester United).

I'm not a football fan, but what I have seen of BT Sport's coverage of sports they arw quite good and snapping at the heels of Sky. This is a good rating and maybe up it by a million if you count viewers in pubs.

Sorry Dancc, how can an audience of 860,000 ''compare favourably'' with 2.7 million or are you comparing the shares ? I am toying with the idea of getting BT Sport (I don't have BT broadband) and wondering if £12 a month is worth it as I'm only interested in football ?

And some pretty big ones too - conveniently timed marriage anyone??

I've started to fall for them already though, saw a headline on DS this morning which read "Cheryl booed by X Factor crowd" and clicked on it in the optimistic hope the numpties had come to their senses about what a talentless fruitcake she really is, turned out to be the usual generated "omg you put through the wrong contestant which is definetely the wrong contestant because I'm choosing to ignore the concept of different opinions" rubbish. Sigh.

Real Madrid could play Barcelona in a Community Shield match and you'd struggle to get a decent audience to any non-sports channel.