Sorry but The Mill is not a hit. Frankly at 1.4m it's a flop. 1.4m is not a good rating for C4 at 8pm at all, let alone for an expensive drama. They've been droning on about these dramas yet they've all crashed and burned. What do Southcliffe, Utopia, Top Boy, New Worlds and now series 2 of The Mill have in common? They all died on their arse, that's what. Not one of them did remotely well. Series 1 of The Mill showed potential but the wheels have come off this time. Then we've got their "smash hit" comedy drama Fresh Meat which actually rates embarrassingly badly and would be better off on E4 where it's inability to hit one million viewers wouldn't be such an issue (not that it is if you listen to the deluded Jay Hunt).

Their comedy slate in general is a disaster actually. The new ones they launched last Autumn like Man Down (which also happened to be shite) and Toast of London somehow scraping a renewal despite dire numbers says it all. Friday Night Dinner doesn't exactly set the world alight either. Maybe, just maybe it's because it too isn't very good. Not that anyone at C4 could ever possibly admit that of course! Sitcoms are notoriously hard to get right and I'm all for giving them a chance but C4 are the other extreme and seem to refuse to cancel anything no matter how much the audience rejects it.

The whole network is a right mess. The entertainment slate is pretty poor. Cats Does Countdown, regular 8/10 Cats and Chatty Man are basically their only hits. Million Pound Drop is a dead show walking, The Singer Takes It All is a flop and The Taste was a disaster. The Jump did well but tailed off across the run and I expect a second run wouldn't do quite so well. The closest thing they've had to a success recently was that James Corden edition of Deal or No Deal! Speaking of which, that and the rest of daytime is a car crash. These 4.30pm quizzes are just not working and I cannot believe they're bringing Fifteen To One back for an extended run! Come Dine With Me and Coach Trip are the only things that work and even CDWM is majorly past its peak.

Even their usually strong factual slate isn't working. You'd expect something like last night's 8-10pm block to do a solid 2m or so yet it barely did half of that, despite both shows doing well in the past. Embarrassing Bodies is tanking on Thursdays and so is One Born Every Minute on Wednesdays. Those two are particularly concerning considering how reliant the network is on both of them. 24 Hours In A&E still does well but it is so overexposed so it surely won't be long before it goes the same way (it's down on where it was already). The new formats don't seem to be coming through and even when something does reasonably well series 2 then turns out to be a flop (the Kirstie show on Tuesdays at 8pm is an example). Amazing Spaces seems to be the only new thing that's worked so naturally they're now overexposing that. Previously popular stars such as Gok Wan, Heston, Jamie Oliver etc can no longer be relied upon to deliver and newly poached stars such as Mary Portas and Hillary Devey haven't worked out. They seem to have lost Ramsay completely too. Their formerly strong factual slate now loos really rather weak.

All in all the network is just falling apart at the seams. This pretentious sounding "creative renewal" has been a disaster and Jay Hunt and her cronies have turned the network into a right mess. It's all a disaster yet no doubt next week at Edinburgh we'll be treated to another round of fawning over Jay Hunt at her controller session and talk of some random show that got 1.9m or something similarly mediocre three months ago as a sign that the network is in great shape. I hope people don't lap it up as it is in by far the worst shape of any major network in the UK at this point and there are no signs whatsoever that the tide is turning. If anything with the renewal of some truly disastrous shows if anything the signs are that they have admitted defeat.

Excellent post Score, great analysis as per usual from you. Put it far better than I ever could. Agree with every word.

I was quite impressed tonight by Jackie Bird, she had all the questions and he had none of the answers (which of course is the role of the interviewer).But I don't want to drag this thread into a discussion about Scottish independence so I will move on...

Yes I agree too - which makes it all the more strange that they keep winning awards although we all know why.

The saving grace for Channel 4 is the "Educating [School]" strand, which should return to 3m later this year with Educating Walthamstow.

On that subject though, let's not forget (and these are the highest programme numbers, consolidated including +1) so far in 2014:

- 6.48m - Benefits Street (20/01/14)
- 4.39m - Gogglebox (23/05/14)
- 3.29m - The Island with Bear Grylls (19/05/14)
- 3.20m - The Undateables (09/01/14)
- 3.14m - Royal Marines Commando School (14/07/14)
- 2.57m - Fargo (20/04/14)
- 2.55m - Derek (23/04/14)

What I can see is that some shows have started well and then dropped badly, Fargo and Derek are examples of that. But I think it's worth noting the above as no doubt the first two on that list will be mentioned at the MGEITF.

It wont be as good as Educating Yorkshire of course.

Thanks Dancc, I appreciate that. I'm glad I'm not the only one distinctly unimpressed with C4 right now. There are some bright spots obviously that I didn't mention in my post like Gogglebox and the Educating strand (although I think the next instalment of that one might struggle to make the same impact as Educating Yorkshire did). Benefits Street was obviously a phenomenon whether we like it or not and The Island was a solid new hit too. But these are few and far between and the bad seriously outweighs the good at the moment. Surely it must be time for drastic action to be taken?

Axing Big Brother and not having anything to replace it is beginning to look like a folly at this point and should teach other broadcasters a lesson about completely dropping big shows.

I'd love to hear how 2m+ viewers across all live showings, not to mention the thousands who record these showings or watch on Demand5, equates to "nobody" or "a tiny audience". This isn't the first time that you have made silly comments like these, GlennA. I struggle to see what your issue with Neighbours is that you have to disseminate these exaggerations so frequently. If it's audience is so "tiny", you should be able to ignore it easily, shouldn't you? OK, so its audience is much smaller than the 18m+ who watched on BBC1 in the late 80s but that was many, many years ago. The world was a very different place back then. The British television industry was a very different place back then. BBC1 in 1988 had a much higher reach than Channel 5 has in 2014. Having said that, Neighbours punches well above its weight. A survey of British soap ratings taken a few years ago found that Neighbours has the highest ABC1 skew of any soap shown on British television and I'd also wager that it has a big 16-34 skew seeing as the show is now produced with this audience in mind. There is obviously still a big affection for Neighbours in this country judging by the coverage it gets in the soap magazines like Inside Soap and Soaplife, its big following on Facebook and Twitter and the conversations I've had about the programme with mates at uni

Utopia is a fantastic drama that has been lauded by newspaper critics and has been nominated for various awards including at the BAFTAs. Not to mention that it does decently in time-shift and has been licenced for an HBO remake directed by David Fincher. On the evidence of this, I'd wager it will be getting a third series as a lot of loose ends remained quite loose after last night's series finale. To be honest, I don't know what the Ratings Thread beef is with Utopia. Nobody is forcing anybody to watch it

Expect some Lottery hatred before Saturday - lets see how many stick with it....
Tonight's numbers 5 9 11 20 23 30 Bonus 45
3 numbers paid £25
4 numbers paid £15 (that's right, less than 3 numbers)
5 numbers paid £105

Lotto - "we had significantly more winners than usual for tonight's #Lotto draw, with a LOT more Match 3s than we would normally expect. This is because the six Main Numbers drawn were below 31 – and many players like to use special dates (such as birthdays and anniversaries) as their lucky numbers. On Lotto, the fixed prizes for the Match 3 prize tier (£25) are deducted from the overall prize pool before the other prize tiers are calculated. The number of Match 3 winners can therefore have an impact on how much remains available for the jackpot and other prize tiers. So, for some draws (like tonight), this can result in a lower jackpot and lower prizes at the other tiers. However, for other draws, it can result in a higher than estimated jackpot and increased prizes at the other levels. At the end of the day, it’s a lottery – and completely dependent on the numbers drawn"

I have no beef with it - just pointing out it has awful ratings.

I am surprised anybody still does the Lottery - I mean how many years does it take people to learn its a rip off.

I wasn't really referencing you, it was more certain other posters in this thread who discuss its perceived low ratings relentlessly at any opportunity. And as I've pointed out, its the context that counts. Utopia's ratings are only low if you're only looking at the overnights as opposed to the consolidated ratings (not to mention that it probably skews well in ABC1s and 16-34s) and, as I've demonstrated, it has high worth to Channel 4 in metrics other than pure ratings.

So 3 returnable fact ent hits? Plus The Jump (and Posh Pawn and Mr Drew's School for Boys did enough for another run).

Looks to me like Jay Hunt has a lot more factual and entertainment hits to talk about at MGEITF than any other Controller.

C4's problem isn't so much that they aren't having hits. They are. They've just got far too much time to fill. BB was the equivalent of 21 smash hit 6 part factual series. It was a nightmare decision to get rid of it. Especially as it has landed next door on C5. It was their Corrie/Eastenders. Imagine the mess BBC1/itv would be in if they suddenly cancelled those soaps? That's what C4 did.

Drama and daytime are the main issues for now.

Best thing Channel 4 could do now is to get someone other then Jay Hunt, The network needs flesh people.

Either on Wednesday's at 9pm or Friday's.


Thinking about it, if ITV put Celebrity Squares on Wednesday at 8pm against Bake-Off it might not rate as badly as first thought. Having seen some clips of it from The Gameshow Story it looks like it could be quite good. If All Star Mr and Mrs can get over 3m against Bake-Off then surely Celeb Squares can do. As long as its above 3.5m then that should be fine.

Granchester is either a Sunday or Monday drama - I'm more inclind to see it on Sunday. Its looks like it could be one of those gentle dramas that could do 7m+ on a Sunday. It would be good if ITV could get another hit drama given the lack of potentially new returning series.

Broadmoor will probably be on Monday's. John Sergent's boating series is eight parts so that looks to me like it will be between Corrie eps.

Is that a freudian slip? or do you have a lisp?

Ratings Thread champagne corks back in the bottle. EastEnders 0.2m ahead. Not great, but it seems to slump in August, for some reason.

Found a post from the equivalent Tuesday last year where ED had 35% and EastEnders 33%. No figures in the post, though, so I suspect EastEnders had more viewers than ED that night.


No, I meant EastEnders had widened its lead over ED compared with the equivalent Monday last year.

I think Neighbours also had 1.30-1.50pm at that stage in 1992. I think it was only a few weeks after those ratings that the BBC butchered a whole storyline out of Neighbours. One of the March episodes only lasted 16 minutes even with the BBC extending the pre-titles re-cap from the previous day's episode.

Lousy night for C4. Apparently, there's quite a lot of explicit violence in Utopia. Seems to be putting people off.

Well on the face of it the four numbers is ridiculous, but I would be really "miffed" if I got 5. The odds on doing that must be pretty long and the "reward" for all that luck is a joke.

Paul Daniels (76) and wife Debbie McGee (55) tell The Sun the are planning a bedroom surprise in Celebrity Big Brother

I feel quite ill reading that.

You'll like it, but not a lot...

Its at times like this I am glad I dont watch the thing.

I wonder if it will put Dancc off !!!