The show has been renewed until 2018. Who knows what will happen next year if BB16 is cut short, but it doesn't necessarily mean BB won't be coming back in some form.

As for your latter point, Viacom were keen to stress when they took on C5 that they didn't want it to be reliant on BB and Frow has gone on record many times saying that it won't last forever but they'll make the most of it whilst it's around. I don't think it would come as a huge shock to them if the civilian one's ratings fell to a point whereby it was no longer viable to continue making it, especially as it was only just the right side of that point the last twice. CBB has always been the main ratings puller in the C5 era and losing that would be a bigger blow as it genuinely makes a huge difference to the channel.

I think they will rest BB next year and run an All Star format instead to bridge the gap between CBB series.

I do think it stands a chance of coming to that. Agree that they may be unofficial qualifiers but the fact it is in Russia is a further complication of itself. Relations between Europe and Russia could decline more and more making it unlikely teams would want to go there.
Spain seems pro Blatter so may refuse to boycott.

Blatter has been relected. I really cant see home nations involvement in the 2018 world cup if he still president by then( scandal or the grim reaper might have forced him out) judging by Greg Dyke's and Michael Platini's comments. The press will make any partial u turn harder as they will mostly be in favour of boycott judging by coverage today. I bet through ITV will not want any withdrawal through as the world cup is their biggest rating and money earner of the year.
I wonder what effect the rugby world cup will have on ratings in the autumn. Some matches will clash with Eastenders while Emmerdale and Corrie will have to move a couple of Fridays. I cant see any of the group stages matches not featuring the home nations getting above 5 million.

Indeed, they do have to do a certain number of hour-long Panoramas every year and it makes sense to do them at a time when they know they're highly unlikely to win the slot. It got 1.3 million, if anyone doesn't know. You'd have to say that it was a classically boring Panorama, though, about Northern Ireland, not a subject that generally engages a mass audience, important though it is.


Yeah, and I can never really understand why people are so interested that they'll watch another hour of Britain's Got Talent after they've just seen two hours of it and there's another two hours tomorrow. But then I've never really understood the point of many of these shows, I like Doctor Who but I never felt the need to watch a behind the scenes programme about it the minute after it finished so I never bothered with Doctor Who Confidential.


Yeah, probably not. I doubt Blatter will still be in charge by 2018 anyway, but as you say, they can still do the qualifiers regardless. Even if they don't end up going to the World Cup it doesn't matter, just like matches in the FA Cup are still interesting even if at the end of it neither make it to the Final.

Of course there was an example of a major boycott of a sporting event in the shape of the 1980 Olympics, and there was a lot of discussion in the six months or so before the games about how they would be covered because while the UK were represented, they weren't as competitive and their presence was controversial.

So in the end the Beeb gave them about three hours a day...
http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules...don/1980-07-28

Alan Hart was the Head of Sport at the time and came up with the schedule and apparently the Governors were so impressed by his plans, that's what got him the job as Controller of BBC1 the following year. But he was crap at that.

I think cutting BB that much is ridiculous. 2 weeks fair but not 4+

For all we know the new HMs could see a boost next week?

What will every commercial broadcaster in Europe do ?
What will the BBC do forking out millions of public money on a farsical world cup ?.. Without Euroupean teams I'd argue the money BBC/ITV pay are valued at less than half.

The financial implications for FIFA in a WC without UEFA are unthinkable! It's clear with this organisation money talks!

I honstley don't think it will come to it, hearing Spain and France voted for Blatter.

If it did however ofc they'd be some kind of tournmant to compensate not just because of ITVs profits, but because of the internationial teams match fitness Etc. A FIFA WC boycott don't mean they'll be no international football for 2 years after Euro 2016!

Again the whole boycott thing is crap, look at Greg Dyke's comments today after the vote he was already backing down after Blatter won

BGT performance show was a bit low. However, it's good to see the results steadily creep up after a relatively poor start. Normally the Monday results does the best but this year so far, it's done the worst.

Corrie did very well last night. I honestly wasn't expecting it to pull ahead of BGT like it did last year. 9m is a very solid result.

I wonder how tonight will go. Last year the fifth semi final was on a Saturday night and averaged 7.8m for the performance show and just 6.1m for the results. Surely with Corrie inbetween it this year it should do a bit better - especially the results show. The final episode of Corrie last year aired on a Sunday night at 9PM and was stranded in between an awful schedule.

Indeed. I think best we can hope for is by the next WC is that Blatter is in the slammer! Or this God Damn ship he keeps proclaiming to be at the helm of hits an iceberg!... Even then he'd be the first in the life boat!

I think it's fair to say the schedule this week has worked well overall, and will therefore be back next year, despite many here constantly demanding it to be changed.

BGT has ended up pretty much in line with last year, a continued strong performance and no decline.

Corrie has ended up rating at various levels but all significantly were up on last week, which is all the scheduling can be blamed for. The fact it is tracking lower than last year in general has been well established and can't be fixed by BGT scheduling alone.

The fact they had a clear run with no midweek football will have helped, something that probably won't occur next year as there will no doubt be a Euro 2016 pre-friendly kicking about somewhere.

You could in theory have a Euros every two season bit it ain't going to happen.
Bloater will find a way to appease UEFA.

ITV has ordered a second series of physical entertainment show Ninja Warrior ahead of the final of the opening run tomorrow (30 May).

The commercial broadcaster has opened the application process for a follow-up series in advance of auditions taking place from May to July. The first show attracted just over 6000 applications.

ITV Studios’ indie Potato acquired the rights to the format, which challenges contestants to complete a tough obstacle course in the shortest time possible, in December.

It has experienced a solid first series since its launch in April, generating a consolidated average audience of 4.6m (24.1%) across its first six parts.

Source: Broadcast

Well Big Brother was the biggest mind f***. Tonights show was received negatively so I expect further drops as the producers went the most power mad they've ever been.

I bet this will air in January

And a final thought of the week for Corrie, it was fantastic tonight. Best episode of the week.

It was a complete and utter shambles from start to finish tonight. If the producers were told they had 7 days to sort out the ratings and that's the best they could come up with, then they really are useless and the imminent ratings failure will be well deserved.

When I first heard about 4 In 4 Out I wasn't surprised because the ratings suggested something drastic was likely. But it was always risky doing something as extreme as that so the execution had to be 100% and it wasn't even close to that. Worst of all their idea of a big finish was sending that dreaded S******z character back in!

Viewers that have been watching from the started mostly hated it (about half of the voters on DS:BB rated the episode terrible, which even by DS:BB standards is quite incredible) and there was nothing there to keep any of the more casual viewers around, if they even turned up in the first place.

Talking of which, most odd that they chose to do this "relaunch" on tonight of all nights when the first hour was against BGT. Even with C5 breathing down their necks and asking for more, this was as big a fail as how they went about it. What's the point in doing something drastic to boost ratings in the hope that some of those viewers will stick around if you do it on a night that you know the ratings potential will be much more limited than it normally would be?

So it was never going to work anyway but they did more harm than good and I fully expect the ratings to continue heading downwards.

Agree but apparently there has already been a bust uo between a new HM and an older one so that probably went the producers way.

It's a bit soon for that, the viewers that remain need time to digest all these changes. It's going to look forced if arguments start immediately. Watch out for a sudden surge in threads citing fakery and scripting.

I wonder if the ITV Studios produced Aquarius will end up on either ITV3 or ITV Encore or perhaps it'll air on somewhere like Alibi or Universal Channel.

I have mixed feelings about tonights BB. On one hand I liked it as its shaken up the house, but on the other hand I will miss some of he HM who have left.

I miss Aaron.

I've seen the new guy in action, he seems like a horrible person. I don't think it would be scripted, he just wants to go in there and break up the friendships. Note how in the latest clip, the original HMs all said "we'll make it through this" meaning they will stick together and try not to get ripped apart.

It's extreme enough to replace four housemates with four new ones this early on, but I think what makes it worse is the random swap of the nominations. C5 BB has always been selective with noms to the point you don't know what's going to be the case from one week to the next but this latest stunt makes a mockery of the whole thing tbh.

As someone who was enjoying the series and thinks the issues are more down to it starting too soon and producer's pampering of vile Helen last year as opposed to the hms, this has left me cold.

Meanwhile in the real world away from the choreographed world of so called 'reality'...

Sky has announced a tie up with NBC over a new drama series, but this caught my eye...


While people argue over a soap or whatever being 1m down or a programme being regarded as a failure with 1.5m viewers here's Sky rating a an expensive drama a huge success with 1.2m.

Sky has over 10m subscribers so should be looking to get 2m more regularly for home grown programming outside of sport..

Having said that, Sky Atlantic is a niche channel only available to Sky viewers. It's not on Virgin. Most shows only scrape a few thousand so Fortitude has been a success for them.

That figure is the consolidated viewing of the first showing. Doesn't include repeats across the week or Sky Go.

However all channels have different benchmarks for a hit. You've been around long enough to know that.