Santer certainly wasn't responsible for "EastEnders" ratings failure. There were a few months he had nothing but it was up to Kirkwood to then see the next lot of cast changes and stories through and thrive. I don't know what Bryan did or whether he was suppressed on his vision but he began to struggle, yet I thought he was a good choice at the time. He's been successful on "Hollyoaks". The scriptwriters are alot to blame with how a soap opera fortunes go.

Would be a good challenge then wouldnt it?

There isn't. There's some dim and distant storyline about a wedding leading to a departure of a murderer but that's it, really.


I know what iaindb was saying about Friday being a good day for a light entertainment show but I still think they should have looked to air it on Monday night instead. If they were going to have a third episode, that is - I'm sure it will be dropped next year and rightly so.


It's a bit of a worry for them that the Saturday night shows are showing week-on-week declines. Next week will be ugly as well.


As they made a conscious effort to make Britain's Got Talent feel nicer they could and should do the same with The X Factor. It's obviously not difficult. I'd replace Cheryl with Nicole as you said above - sit her next to Louis and let the insanity run forth.

I have the feeling they'll look to bring the 2010 panel back in full first, though. Of course, if the lives take off they will probably stick with this year's judges.

Apparently Simon cowell and Sinitta were saying on yesterdays Xf that the talent for Over 25s this year was awful. What hope does the show have when even the judges on it are saying the talent's crap?

The thing is, though, these are the bona fide consolidated ratings timed to the nearest minute, compiled using logs of exact timings-to-the-second supplied by the broadcasters. They shouldn't have been any overlap, especially as there was a clear one- or two-minute gap between the two programmes:

Fri 22 into Sat 23 Aug 2014
01:01:46 for 28 mins - EASTENDERS: 692k consolidated = 287k live + 405k timeshift
01:31:54 for 4 mins - WEATHERVIEW: 605k consolidated = 230k live + 375k timeshift

Now I can imagine that 287k watched the last half-hour of the omnibus live and then 230k watched four minutes of Weatherview live afterwards. That makes sense. It's the 375k of timeshift for Weatherview which looks odd. I'm going to email them.

And regarding the fact that Broadcast magazine don't use tape-checked ratings: I find this annoying and also puzzling as their daily online ratings operation do (they use Attentional like DS do).

Although the over-running sport on multichannels such as Sky, BT and ITV4 would be a problem regardless, as Attentional only tape-check the main five channels.

What a dire rating for TXF last night. Strictly re-bounded well to a good figure and share and DW held up well.

Pretty bad evening for ITV last night, with even The Xtra Factor below 400k


And to those wondering where I am, currently trawling through this thread having recently got back from being out in the sunny weather today in Chichester at a food festival. I am not avoiding this thread because TXF has done badly.

If I hadn't left home so early 9am to get to Chichester I would have been posting on this thread. I don't have internet on my phone either.

My email to BARB:


I have to be so careful spelling "timeshift" on this laptop - the F often doesn't work!

Martin Freeman is to star in the Eichmann Show for BBC2 on January 27, one of several BBC programmes that day on radio and television to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp - Media Guardian

Russell T Davies livening up Coronation Street? Why do I keep getting a picture of a group of Slitheen getting drunk in the Rovers and the factory under new ownership of The Master? Suppose it might work if a spaceship landed in Streetcars as the owners are at least used to alien contact with holograms and a mutant cat.

In the real world there is talk of Corrie planning returns for:



So there has been some movement in that direction as suggested in an earlier post.

You dont have to justify whether you are posting or not. Some of us do have lives.
The next 2 XF need to get a boost otherwise I fear for it although I am really suprised by lasts nights rating especially.

In reality I would rather defend more worthwhile programmes such as DA, IAC or Corrie (when its good) than The X factor which is basically in terminal decline.

Its likely that by the end of the contract in 2016 TXF will be rating around 6-7m as its heights.


Tomorrow I suspect Strictly to be the top show with 9m. DA is around 8m and TXF below 8m inc+1.

Yes, it's been factored in. Samuel was dividing the total running time by the number of contestants.

Sounds like you're incapable of comprehending the idea of Russell T Davies producing anything other than Doctor Who. He's worked on Corrie before and is a very varied producer.

But yeah...

Useful if you want to politely tell someone to uck off though.


People on here have lives?


If +1 isn't promoted next Saturday's figure is going to be horrible. Even if it is promoted it isn't going to be pretty. A lot rides on tonight's show - they'll be hoping it at least holds up on last week. I personally don't think it will.

I do see where you're coming from, but what's quite clear is that X Factor is haemorrhaging its casual audience, at least on Saturdays (and random Fridays). People may be aware of +1 but some will need prompting. It certainly can't do any harm. They don't have to mention Strictly. They can say, an hour in, "If you've just joined us, welcome. You've missed these great moments... <cue VT>... but don't fear, tune to ITV+1 on these channel numbers shown on your screen and you can catch up right now."

That is assuming (a) a reasonable number of the casual audience will flick over to ITV after Strictly, and (b) they have some great moments to show in the VT.

No, I did know that. Seen a lot of his previous stuff. Queer as Folk was excellent.

I probably should have added a smiley.

Have they pushed TXF back half an hour from the intended start time next week? The announcer just said it started at 8

Heard that too. They cant even get the start time right what hope is there for the viewers?

Exactly.

I would also say the timeshift channels tend to be used more by a younger audience who are less likely to watch Strictly so are more likely to watch The X Factor from the off. They need a prompt for the older audience.

No +1 promotion tonight post show but the key one will be during the adverts on the first live show at around 8.30pm.

Talking of shows which can't afford another loss, I think ITV may be getting slightly concerned if Downton Abbey dips below 8m including +1.

Perhaps. But then the Sunday shows are gaining week on week as well. It's a bit of a muddle at the moment. I suspect the growth on Sundays may come to a halt this week though. Judges houses is insanely dull.


I'm not even sure what "nice" is? The audience not chanting "off off off", Walliams instead of Morgan and some dancing dogs.

Judges houses seems very nice - lots of nice ordinary folk trying to realise their dreams and make their families proud. Lots of famous people being nice to them. Nice houses. Nice songs. It's really really really boring. No seriously. It's really boring.


Craig Revel Horwood didn't give out a mark above 5 for the first hour of Strictly last night, what hope does the show have blah blah blah

Honestly Sammy, X Factor's ratings were rubbish last night, I'm not sure why you're resorting to such desperate nonsense today of all days.

Words fail me - utterly and completely fail me.

ITV website still has The X Factor at 7.30pm.

It's ridiculous. She literally had to say one sentence that hour and got that wrong. At least give the audience the right information.

What is happening to ITV? Either there's been another massive continuity bungle (after the Scott & Bailey one), or they're going to run X Factor till half-past ten?

The American version axed Judges Houses and had Arena Auditions - Boot Camp - Six Chair Challenge. I'm not sure whether re-introducing Boot Camp instead of Judges Houses would improve matters at all.

Glad judges houses is done with. It really is dull compared to the rest of the series. Now bootcamp has become the 6 Chair Challenge it just feels so flat. It's also the part of the show that has changed least in 11 series and it shows. Perhaps that's why it did so badly last night? Only time will tell but I suspect tonight's rating isn't going to look good.

On the positive side the top 12 actually looks pretty good and the addition of 4 wildcards will help further. I think the top 16 (based on the rumours of who the wild cards are) could provide a very good series. Also having 16 acts rather than 12 allows them to make a couple of casting errors and get away with it whilst protecting the strong acts for longer as fodder and acts who fail to live up to their potential get despatched.