Actually they had someone on the radio this morning saying they are not going to be watching TA again, since it manipulates people and makes them look stupid on TV for entertainment. I would say that's not far wrong.

So what's the difference with this and TXF? Both manipulate people for entetainment and yet we hear no complaining from anyone on here. Is that because TXF is up against perfect Strictly?

And both have two ego maniacs in charge.

I think The Apprentice had a great opener but the rating might go down due to increased competition. Facing under 2m with Spandau Ballet is different to facing 4m with Scott & Bailey. Would love it if The Apprentice held onto that rating for tonight.

No difference and both shows are completely fine. The people know what they're signing up to. Good for Apprentice to be up on last year, hopefully it can sustain most of that tonight. Agree with Robbie the double header launch is a bit much.

And they better not do the finale-at-8pm thing again this year.

It's because with The Apprentice not many are likeable going in. With The X Factor there's a history of nice people being manipulated and made to look bad. You feel dirty after watching it some years. X Factor can feel unsavoury.

But viewers watch so there you go.

It's definitely a subjective opinion and a matter of perception.

Yes it is. And over the years X Factor has had an unsavoury reputation. But people watch.Every single competition/reality show has a level of manipulation. Some are generally nice and some are generally nasty & grubby. X Factor is well made but for years they they glories in confrontation, arguing and scandal. It's an open secret in the media that they've pushed these stories to the media over the years.

The stuff I've been told!

ITV inc+1

Wilderness Walks with Ray Mears 2.33m (11.7%) at 7.30pm
Long Lost Family 2.37m (11.4%) at 8pm
Spandau Ballet's True Gold special entertained 1.41m (6.6%) at 9pm

DIRE ratings. The problem ITV have got in no consistency. LLF What Happens Next has been taken off for football so many times, by the time its returns to the schedule, nobody knows its back on. Useless.

Wilderness Walks almost top programme ans that was against 7m from EastEnders.

Decent rating and share for EE.

But is that a perfectly valid point given that there's not really been an uptick in the numbers since the move to darker nights? Its not like audiences were avoiding the show during the early summer run.


No one is suggesting the BBC shouldn't be offering a varied line-up on Saturday night (although oddly this doesn't seem to concern them on Sunday nights) but rather asking whether Doctor Who is the best choice for a Strictly lead-in at this point. The show doesn't appear to have seen any benefit from being paired with Strictly. If it can achieve these exact numbers at a different time of the year away from Strictly (and boost Saturday nights elsewhere in the process) then is it not perhaps best for the BBC to take that option and see if they can find another family drama for Saturday nights? The point here isn't that Doctor Who is performing badly but rather that Doctor Who now appears to be such an island (when it comes to ratings) largely disconnected from what it airs with that it seems something of a waste to be pairing it with a huge family entertainment show that could potentially give a leg up to another show that wouldn't be able to pull those kind of numbers by itself at another time of the year.

Also doesn't this argument for varied Saturday night schedules work for moving Doctor Who elsewhere anyway? What exactly do the BBC have up their sleeve to play on Saturday night January-August next year? It seems to me they have Doctor Who and Atlantis (both similar dramas) airing back-to-back at the end of the year and then nothing else during the year.

if i was adam crozier i'd probably demand that whoever put a documentary about spandau ballet on at 2100 should get the sack. just who did they think would watch this show? it's pure and utter incompetence.

IMO Peter Fincham needs to go.

Is it pure incompetence? They've put throwaway filler up against the return of one the BBC's biggest formats. That seems like relatively normal scheduling.

BBC 1
12:15: Bargain Hunt - 1.79m
13:00: BBC News at One - 2.49m
13:30: BBC Regional News - 2.53m
13:45: Doctors - 1.44m (20.9%)
16:30: Antiques Road Trip - 2.04m
17:15: Pointless - 3.37m
18:00: BBC News at Six - 4.69m
18:30: BBC Regional News - 5.31m
19:00: The One Show - 4.46m
19:30: EastEnders - 6.90m (33.9%)
20:00: Holby City - 4.64m (22.4%)
21:00: The Apprentice - 6.66m (29.7%)
* Peak - 7.10m
22:00: BBC News at Ten - 4.24m
22:45: Swap My Council House - 2.00m

BBC 2
19:00: Cat Watch 2014: The New Horizon Experiment - 1.11m (5.5%)
20:00: £100k House: Tricks of the Trade - 1.65m (8.0%)
21:00: Human Universe - 1.58m (7.1%)
22:00: The Apprentice: You’re Fired! - 2.10m (11.8%)

ITV
17:00: The Chase - 2.71m
18:00: ITV Regional News - 3.32m
18:30: ITV News - 3.35m
19:00: Emmerdale - 6.16m (31.4%)
* +1 - 252k (1.2%)
19:30: Wilderness Walks with Ray Mears - 2.23m (10.9%)
* +1 - 103k (0.8%)
20:00: Long Lost Family - 2.19m (10.6%)
* +1 - 181k (0.8%)
21:00: Spandau Ballet: True Gold - 1.27m (5.7%)
* +1 - 141k (0.9%)

Channel 4
18:30: Hollyoaks - 0.993m (5.1%)
* +1 - 119k (0.6%)
20:00: Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners - 1.58m (7.6%)
* +1 - 244k (1.1%)
21:00: Ramsey’s Costa Del Nightmares - 1.28m (5.7%)
* +1 - 300k (1.9%)

Channel 5
13:15: Home and Away - 0.227m (3.3%)
13:45: Neighbours - 0.636m (9.1%)
17:30: Neighbours - 0.829m (5.7%)
18:00: Home and Away - 0.664m (3.9%)
* 5* First Look at 18:30 - 0.402m (2.2%)
20:00: Jill Dando: Britain’s Worst Crimes - 0.934m (4.5%)
21:00: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - 1.17m (5.2%)
* +1 - 142k (0.9%)

BBC 3
21:00: Don’t Tell the Bride - 0.453m (2.0%)
01:30: EastEnders - 57k (3.3%)

E4
19:00: Hollyoaks - 0.829m (4.2%)
* +1 - 174k (0.9%)

Sources - DS, Mike Teevee

ITV beaten by both BBC2 and Channel 4 at 21:00 and Channel 5 hot on its heals.

Interestingly Doctor Who's live audience has been around 3.5m all series. That was with time changes and a partial/full X Factor clash.


Good points. The thing is none of is really know what to make of it all. I think the questions certainly need to be asked.

Tuesday could be stronger for ITV. Is it scheduled poorly to accommodate Champions League matches?

Better for the Apprentice, up on last year.

The One Show
full slot (19:00-19:30): 4.46m (22.7%)
tape-checked (19:00-19:25): 4.32m (22.1%)
therefore 19:25-19:30 rated 5.14m

With thanks to ronant for the tape-checked figures.

Monty Don was the guest. Good rating/share.

The Tuesday flopzone is alive and well. I did actually watch the Spandau Ballet show as they were popular when I was younger, but it's the sort of show more suited to late Saturday nights.
The problem ITV has with Tuesdays is due to their football commitments from September to May, they can't really launch six part dramas or more expensive entertainment as they would be interrupted by the CL. This has meant when there's no football, they show cheap, badly rating shows. However, it will be interesting when the CL contract ends, what ITV does next.

According to some they'll have lots of lovely freed-up cash to spend on new Tuesday peaktime shows when CL ends....

Back in the real world however it's almost certain the ITV bean-counters will be adding these savings into their adjusted budgets and the Tuesday flopzone will continue ad infinitum.

I have often thought this about Tuesday night on ITV. Once Champions League football is gone they will be able to schedule long-term. BBC1 could see stiffer competition. But when the Champions League season has been over in previous years the schedule still hasn't been particularly strong.

So the Gilded Age is a US Victorian drama and now Downton the prequel (presumably set in the Victorian age) showing how Lord Grantham met his American wife, I imagine.

Scope for the first historical drama cross over to launch one or the other and try to cement it in the ratings?

In an ideal world ITV would replace the football with some marvellous new male-orientated format that nobody else has thought of yet - but of course that's far, far easier said than done. If they don't come up with a male-skewing format to sell to the same advertisers who pay the hefty sums to be showing during the Champions League coverage, and just fall into a never-ending cycle of daytime tat or female-skewing repetitivness, it's hard to see that their pockets wouldn't suffer, even without having to pay for the football.

I want neither of these on my TV.

Thats the point. Not only have they failed to schedule anything meaningful on Tuesday even when the football isnt on but they have struggled this year to fill up slots across the schedule on other days as well. Lets hope they are saving some shows for a strong start to next year they need to.