It's a mess of a format. Terrible Top Gear lite presenting style.

According to BARB it's averaging 1.3 million which is exactly the same as the highlights programme last year presented by John Inverdale.

Ratings are the same but the format is worse. You watch because it has the tennis.

It very bad it terrible. I couldn't bear it so I put more headphones on. I can't believe some people will watch such rubbish like that.

The name of the programme alone offends me greatly.

Yes I should get out more.

So close, but ultimately not to be.

Thanks for the heads up though. Good teatime viewing.

Just sounds like something dreamt up in a meeting on W1A. It's embarrassing.

Tennis fans who've missed the action will have no choice but to watch this, and the BBC will say ratings are similar to the John Inverdale show, but 95 per cent of viewers dislike this show which is rather like Big Brother's Bit on the Side Does Wimbledon.

If they do bring back Love Island, Give it to ITVBe and refocus ITV2 to what it should be, Also move Wimbledon2Day to the 03:00 slot and bring back Today At Wimbledon.

1.7m for 2d@W last night

I couldn't have said it any better.

Big blow to Big Brother losing the enigmatic Marc O'Neill 13 days before the final.

It was widely predicted producers would engineer a twist post nominations to ensure his safety, but they resisted. And that has come back to bite them.

That - as well as the hotel BB task ending - is probably going to be enough to bring the ratings back down to the levels they were on at the start of the series, if not lower.

Two of this summer's biggest mistakes, although Wimbledon 2 Day does benefit from a captive audience of people who have missed the live matches, but the whole thing smacks of a reality show on a channel which prides itself on being above this kind of thing.
Love Island, all I can say is, why? OK it's ratings have improved a bit as it went on( like the original), but even by ITV 2 standards it's not a hit and sends out the wrong image of the channel. It would be best suited to ITV Be, where 300,000 viewers would be considered good, and would complement TOWIE.

Watch BB viewers decline. One of the most entertaining hms ever has been evicted and we are left with the worst lot ever.

Emmerdale looks to have done particularly badly last night. Hurt by the tennis on BBC2 perhaps?

3.65m / 21.7% exc. HD and +1

That's quite a drop from Thursday evening, and if it managed to beat Eastenders again ........

I saw people claiming they'd keep an Andy Murray match on BBC1, but I was thinking they only do that if he's on the verge of winning, and/or if it's a big match, like the semi-final.

When the BBC decided to move to BBC2, Serena was in the driving seat, and they could reasonably have presumed that it would be finished in the next twenty minutes with a predictable Williams win. Heather first broke Serena after the match had moved. Thankfully, it was just before the BBC1 show went off air, so Sue Barker could announce it, and people might change channels.

I love the tennis, but a lot of people get frustrated at the schedules being mucked about, so when tennis is scheduled for BBC2 at 6pm, you need a good reason to move the news. Tennis fans know where the BBC2 button is, and it's all HD.

We didn't know the match was about to turn into a thriller, but I still think the BBC made the right decision. It went on long enough that multiple programmes would have needed to be rescheduled from BBC1, and people were able to find it.

Ouch.

Elsewhere on Friday...

EastEnders: 5.27m (30.2%)
Celeb MasterChef: 3.59m (19.4%)
Wimbledon 2Day: 1.30m (7.1%)
Gardeners' World: 1.63m (8.6%)
Cats Do Countdown: 1.20m (6.5%)
The Last Leg: 1.18m (7.8%)
Big Brother: 1.02m (5.6%)
Bit on the Side: 0.62m (5.2%)
Comedy Fest: 0.27m (1.4%)
Rock 'n' Roll America: 0.54m (2.9%)
The Hobbit: 0.45m (2.6%)
A League of Their Own: 0.34m (1.9%)



Really pleasing to see the brilliant Last Leg continue its steady progress, notably scoring a better share than Cats, and not at all far behind in terms of viewership. Next stop 9pm?

Shameful line-up tonight on Five - When the other channels have a GI Joe premiere, Wimbledon, new John Bishop comedy, Top Gear repeat and Belgian virus thriller Cordon here's Channel 5's response:

6.15 Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords (R)
7.10 Can't Pay? We'll Take It Away! (R)
8.05 Benefits: 37 Years on the Dole (R)
9.00 Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole (R)
10.00 Big Brother
11.00 He Left Me For My Mother and Other Betrayals (R)

When is the new Viacom broom going to sweep shit like this aside or is this in fact the new regime's plan going forward which seems to me worse even than under Desmond's aegis?

I know you're in full on WUM mode, but C5 has aired mostly repeats on Saturday nights for about three years now.

It's probably one of the reasons Viacom are bringing football back to the schedule on this night from next month. Along with live boxing, cricket highlights and the new Transporter series, it will be a strong male skewing alternative to what the other main channels will be offering.

AFAIK apart from the odd film premiere C4 is mostly repeats on Saturdays, but of course nobody says anything about that.

EastEnders is ahead of Emmerdale again. And order is restored.

That's what people on this thread would love to see, I'm sure.

I should also point out that Can't Pay? We'll Take it Away is one of C5's most popular shows and has been repeating really well in that slot.

They will be very competitive with C4 for much of the evening with that lineup, so it can't be that much worse a schedule. Nobody cares if it doesn't get Straker's seal of approval.

It makes you wonder what happened on Thursday. Initially I would have suggested that the tennis affected it, but there was still a big duel on Friday