I think it's a bad move, it disturbs the sitcom element of the show. It's ok for one-off specials, but I think 30 minutes would be best to sustain Benidorm's quality and ratings. Noone wants overload.

It would be a good idea to have well made comedies following it. It might be an idea for ITV to think up a nice panel show format for after Benidorm, perhaps when the comedy returns next year.

I do think ITV should maybe start a music format on the same night that Benidorm begins. It could be an attempt at a very small revamp. They've already made a step with the introduction of News at Ten.

7:00pm Emmerdale
7:30pm Coronation Street
8:00pm Conquer the Castle [an STV gameshow that could easily be networked - a good gameshow that could run throughout the year]
8:30pm Novelty [presented by Jools Holland and Annie Lennox, the show has classic acts as well as new, innovative acts. It aims to be just-off-the-mainstream, looking at a middle class audience. It has a quick album/singles chart update too]
9:00pm Benidorm
10:00pm News at Ten
10:45pm Tonight

The BBC will settle for the remaining 45 (ish, minus recent Swiss flop)

Minus the weeks ITV1 shows a crime drama at 9pm, which is most. So that leaves the chariteee nights

Have you seen the figures for Later lately?

Blatantly Later would be a hit with Annie Lennox at the helm...

Anyone have the ratings for ITV's Biggest Loser (daily on ITV1 at 4pm) which started yesterday and also how it fared in comparison to 'Taste the nation' (I think thats the show that was in the 4pm slot last week).

Hells Kitchen finally became must see TV yesterday with it denting both Eastenders and A2A...before it just seems to have been TV if nothing else is on. Also ending on a high note is great and bodes well for a recomission, that with the fact on average it performed better than the previous series which was on air in 2007 and considering a lot of TV programmes have fallen in ratings since then it has performed quite modestly.

A fall of 1.1m for BBC established drama is quite shocking really and it bodes well for Compulsion next Monday on ITV1.

Heroes-1.1m! That really is shocking and quite a fall from the 4m+ it started with!

Decent night for FIVE considering Extreme Fishing was effectively a repeat.

Surprised by the fall for Ashes to Ashes. I would have thought it would have sustained most of last week's viewers. Though I imagine lots of viewers would have Sky +ed it or will catch up with the episode on the I Player.

I thought originally that Compulsion wouldn't do very well next Monday if it's up against Ashes to Ashes, but now I can see it getting 6 million + possibly.

Hell's Kitchen did really well for ITV1. I am confident it will be back next year.

Yes, but they are trying to build up Lie to Me (I think it's already been commissioned for a further season).

The key point is that this is the third time that Obama has swiped prime-time space in three months. Every time that he does it the networks lose millions (in aggregate perhaps tens of millions) of dollars in advertising revenue which they don't get back.

The networks are facing a recession like everyone else, and there comes a point where the White House taking money (and therefore work and jobs) away from them so often in so short a time is taking the p***.

Apparently the other networks, while taking Obama this time, secretly hope that the FOX tactic works, giving them an excuse to jump out themselves if/when Obama tries to pull the same trick yet again.

As FOX point out, there are now plenty of 24 hour news networks (and internet portals) where people can watch the President if they want to do so.

Michael Grade axed Doctor Who in 1985, and if it had been up to him that would have been that.

He was over-ruled by his then boss, the late great Billy Cotton, who insisted that the programme should return in 1986, although Grade did succeed not only in getting the show off-air for a (then) unprecedented 18 months but in cutting its budget and number of episodes per season in half.

While it's true that the final, eventual, axe which fell in 1989 came after Grade had left the BBC, there is no doubt that (a) he wanted to kill it outright himself and (b) he started the process of slow-motion poisoning (eg the decision from 1987 on to schedule it head to head against Coronation Street).

Now, it's equally fair to point out that DW's problems in the late 80s included shoddy scripts, appalling production, absymal casting decisions and a nosedive in quality of heroic proportions - but that Grade hated DW with a passion and was very keen to kill it outright is not now disputed (even though Grade publicly told a different story at the time).

I'm not sure I'd go that far! It was a respectable performance, but nothing more.

ITV do make dramas for the BBC, eg The Street. Other programmes eg This Is Your Life or University Challenge have swapped channels (UC has been made by Granada for ITV, C4 and now BBC2.)

But Heartbeat is so strongly associated with ITV that I rather doubt that the BBC would take it because they would fear that many viewers would give ITV, and not the BBC, credit for it still being shown. That might be especially so for a programme with a much larger than average proportion of older, and therefore "easily confused", viewers.

If ITV promote "Compulsion" saying that "The ITV Monday Night Thrillers return with Compulsion" then it should get over 6. I think they should do that, and it should be A2A as a result.

Thought that would drop. I found it pretty dull and the critics gave it a pasting too. Back to the end of the last run's ratings


Ouch for Heroes though I imagine a lot of people will download it. It's been a hard slog, a la Prison Break which I imagine would have suffered equally if it had been airing on terrestrial still. No longer must see TV is old Heroes...more....shall we record and see if we get a minute?

As a high-profile big name British drama it ought to dent A2A, I agree.

But the Radio Times write-up of Compulsion is so hostile though - stressing how seedy, repulsive and disgusting the drama is in the opinion of the RT TV editor (and no, she doesn't always attack ITV dramas) that it might see a fairly big drop-off in viewers after the start. And yes, not only does she call it "repulsive" in the text, that's in the headline too - one of the most devastatingly negative reviews of a drama I can recall in the RT for years.

That, and an 11 pm finish time before a working day for most people, mean that I would not be surprised to see a 25-50% drop between the opening and closing quarter hours for Compulsion.

I haven't got my RT yet, so I haven't read the review, but, reading the synopsis, I'd have thought that it is supposed to be seedy and repulsive. I still don't see it doing any more than about 4m, though, for the reasons you have stated, and because of the storyline, which won't be appealing for many.

It doesn't sound very good, from what I've read about it.

Interestingly, it's also one of those dramas people have been wittering on about on the internet for months, in the way they did about Pushing Daisies and He Kills Coppers. And look what happened to those!

But, it does have the advantage of following on from Coronation St, which seems to be a benefit on Mondays, but not on Fridays.

Monday 27th April
USA Overnight Ratings

Network - Programme - 18-49 Rating/Share - Total Audience

Sorted by 18-49 Rating

8pm:
FOX – House.................................4.5/12.....11.36m
ABC – Dancing With The Stars......4.1/12......18.43m
CBS – The Big Bang Theory...........3.4/10.......9.31m
NBC – Chuck.................................2.3/7.........6.12m
CW – Gossip Girl...........................1.0/3.........2.03m
8.30pm:
CBS – How I Met Your Mother......3.7/10.......8.87m

9pm:
CBS – Two and a Half Men...........4.9/12.....14.09m
ABC – Dancing With The Stars.....4.7/12......20.41m
FOX – 24......................................3.4/9........10.58m
NBC – Heroes...............................3.0/7.........6.39m
CW – One Tree Hill.......................1.0/3.........2.13m
9.30pm:
CBS – Rules of Engagement.........3.9/10.....11.30m
ABC – Surviving Suburbia.............2.4/6.........9.91m

10pm:
CBS – CSI: Miami.........................3.3/9.......12.09m
NBC – Medium.............................2.2/6.........6.72m
ABC – Castle...............................2.1/6.........8.39m

NETWORKS:
FOX – 3.9/10 & 10.96m
CBS – 3.8/10 & 11.26m
ABC – 3.2/9 & 13.99m
NBC – 2.5/7 & 6.41m
CW – 1.0/3 & 2.13m

SOURCE:
Tvbythenumbers

NOTES:[LIST][*]Heroes and Chuck were on series finales.[*]It's sweeps again, so all new programming on a typically busy Monday night.[/LIST]
NEWS:[LIST][*]Harpers Island moves to Saturdays as of May 2nd. Repeats of Criminal Minds and CSI will fill the Thursday 10pm slot for the next 2 weeks and then it will be occupied by the season finale of CSI: New York. Rules of Engagement is set to air on Wednesday 13th at 8pm and it should be interesting to see how it does without a Two and a Half Men lead-in. [*]FOX have reorganised their Sunday schedule, moving Sit Down, Shut Up to 7pm after a poor start to the series.[*]As previously mentioned, FOX have refused to hand over their airwaves to President Obama and will instead air a new episode of Lie to Me at 8pm.[/LIST]

Personally I thought it was back to top class-I didnt enjoy series one much at all.(it being Ashes to Ashes)

The reason that is, it is because it was originally meant to air at Christmas.

Ah. That's strange. Perhaps ITV don't have much confidence in it?

I didn't see it.

Well ITV don't regularly get 5m+ on a weekday night at 9pm so I'd say it was a very good performance ...


ITV2's Celebrity Juice seems to be really coming into its own lately and performs very well for the channel, I think its been winning or almost coming top of multi channel lately. Maybe it could be an idea to trial that on ITV1. Even if it only brought in around 2.5m-3m its still cheap to produce and would be quite big with the 16-24 demographic.

I think it's a very good idea. It would be a good experiment to see what happens when a show from ITV2 goes to ITV1.

See if it has the same effect as BBC2/BBC1 change.

If it doesn't have the same effect and it bombs then it can go back to ITV2 and probably get back its audience it already had as well as a few extra because it has been exposed to a wider audience. But if its surviving now on ITV2 with around 0.3-0.5m viewers then as long as it would get above 2m, although not great in the slightest for ITV1 it could still be very profitable.