Britain's Got More Talent and I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here Now are strong performers. They are where X Factor Xtra used to be more regularly.

Well yes there's the FA Cup, as well as Eurovision and Last Night of the Proms, but the general idea still stands.

I wonder if Casualty will take a break this year?

Wonder what Sky One with A League Of Their Own now James Corden has a Job with CBS in America

Will Sky appoint a new presenter lined up to take over ALOTH or has it already been axed

Fair point, but the fact remains that the two shows that won their slots are, in order, a dirt cheap daytime quiz (I say that as a fan of the show) and a creaky old medi-soap.

I know the BBC have tried lots of new things over the past few years on Sat night, but NOTHING has worked, outside of the Lottery shows. It's all creatively disastrous and not becoming of a corporation that is supposedly free to take risks.

Again, I say that as a supporter of the Beeb (on the whole).

Britain's Got More Talent success is heavily down to Stephen Mulhern. On that show he can have fun with the contestants who enter BGT.

In regards to next year, unless ITV have anything strong to lead into Beowulf in January, there best best would be to hold off until BGT starts and launch it then.

6.50pm Ninja Warrior UK (if its a success) or Catchphrase
7.45pm Britain's Got Talent
9.05pm Beowulf
10pm Newziods

Newziods is in the wrong slot. Its going to struggle on Wednesday and I'm pretty sure would fare better on Saturday or Sunday following a young skewing programme.

Beowulf should be given the best slot possible, or Jekyll and Hyde - which ever one ITV deem the better.

By the way, these are the proper numbers (incl +1 and HD) for Ninja Warrior. It didn't get 4m, so don't know where those figures came from...


3.2m
3.5m
4.0m
5.2m

Slot: 3.8m

Corden is continuing with it. Sky renewed it until 2017 and Corden's deal with CBS allows him to come back and do it - he insisted on it apparently.

The 15-minute breakdown there shows that from 19:00 to 20:00, ITV averaged 4.0m.

However, the tape-checked number (slot) is 3.8m from 19:00 to 19:55, so presumably ITV averaged 6.2m from 19:55 to 20:00, which seems realistic from the breakdown.

There are 48 episodes of Casualty scheduled this year, isn't that usual ?

The Ant and Dec thing isn't quite as you say, the problem came because they were talking about doing a new Spitting Image with Roger Law, one of the original creators, and then did a documentary in 2006 for which they made some new Ant and Dec puppets. Law didn't know they were doing new puppets and said ITV should have asked his permission before they did them, so ended the discussions.

There's nothing to say you can't do satire during an election campaign as HIGNFY proves, plus the new Jack Dee series which begins tomorrow on BBC2 and which I've heard nothing about. The only criteria is you have to been totally even-handed and cover all parties equally, and I don't doubt Newzoids will do that because I think it's going to be totally toothless and make no satirical points whatsoever.


I don't know about In It To Win It being the most popular lottery format, I think much of that is due to when it's been shown in the past, it just so happens it normally gets quite a cushy slot when ITV are pretty weak. I know it was opposite Britain's Got Talent last year but it got a slightly better lead-in. I don't know if anyone specifically hunts it out or would say it was their favourite quiz, certainly my parents much prefer some of the other formats like Who Dares Wins, as do I.

It's an incredibly long-running format, though, having started thirteen years ago. Must be one of the longest running quizzes in TV history by now.


I wonder what the ITV audience will make of Chris Kamara. I didn't like it much, as you say it might get repetitive very quickly and I wonder if the first episode showed more or less everything that it can offer, with people performing extremely badly and people doing very well. When you've seen someone complete the course in ninety seconds and fail in two seconds, is there much else to see? I think it probably would have worked better if they'd imported it before Total Wipeout. Be interesting to see what happens next week when it's opposite the football.


That is the point, and that is why awards shows like this judge the prizes based on one sample episode provided by the programme makers - to allow independent judgement based on the merits of that particular show, rather than if you're a fan of it.

Could Newzoids be a spitting image or a mistake to spit at for ITV and will The Delivery Man deliver the goods? Will the election debate poll a similar audience on BBC One as it did on ITV? Could the first Formula One race of the season on free-to-air television speed away with the viewers and who will score highly in the matches between the Madrid clubs and Arsenal/Reading? Which show will win through between Inside Harley Street and Skint? Will Banished finish on a high? Could Ice Rink on the Estate skate off with a large audience and will The X Men be First Class?

Why not have a go at the DS Ratings Prediction Game? Just click HERE, left click quote, delete the quote marks and get prediciting!

Thank you in advance to everyone who takes part.

That's usual (although some websites state 46 episodes this series, while others are sticking with 48). I think Andy might have meant are they going to leave abreak of a few weeks between the end of the current series and the start of the next, or are they going to start the next series as soon as the curent one ends.

I see after one week Corden has fallen behind NBC's Late Night with Seth Myers - 1.511 million to Corden's 1.201 million. Corden had a 26% lead in the first week, curiosity factor obviously.

Judging a whole programme based on one episode when you may have no knowledge of ongoing plots is nonsensical. Never mind giving them an award for it. Particularly for things like soaps which run hundreds of episodes a year.

It's an incredibly long-running format, though, having started thirteen years ago. Must be one of the longest running quizzes in TV history by now.

Jeopardy has been running on NBC since 1964 which I make 51 years

Only if the category the piece is being entered for is 'best continuous plot'. The programme makers submit a piece which best represents the merits of the show in question in terms of the category in question, and are judged objectively on how it fares against the agreed criteria for said category by a balanced range of respected critics and industry experts - who are usually picked for being able to rise above fandom and hype etc. It's basically the same method as is used for awarding grades for A Level coursework, and I don't see any protests suggesting there's much wrong with that.

Corden will certainly not give it up, MediaGuardian reported a few years ago that SKY were paying him £65,000 an episode.

BGT gets off to an excellent start and gets the second highest rating of the year. While TXF seems to be like rats leaving a sinking ship, BGT continues to do very well. ITV can now rest easy for the next seven weeks as their biggest LE hit is in town.
Also Casualty seems to be the home of the more sobre viewer who wants drama. 5 million is stll good and a credit to such an old show.

I quite like him but I can't help but feel like Sky are being ripped off there! It rates well but not that well and I'm not sure it's suffer much if he was replaced.

Excellent start for BGT. That 10.1m rating is more than I was expecting given how most shows have returned with poor numbers recently. Nice to see that Talent has bucked the trend. It was never going to match last years opener rating of 11.1m - but it's pretty much is the same ballpark as the last few series so it's a strong start in my opinion.

I actually think In It to Win It is one of the better Lottery gameshow formats: unfussy set-up and the promise of a relatively large monetary prize (in BBC terms - it makes Shane Richie's "Wish List" look like a church hall jumble sale) that doesn't leave you thinking it's been a waste of time watching after it suddenly drops back to £0 or diminishes, like some of the other formats. Dale Winton - though he's probably Marmite in television presenting terms - is also a decent host.

Good start for BGT, capitalising on a not-unexpected crash by its BBC One opposition. I do think that the ratings for the two shows either side of it are disappointing though - BGT is such an enormous draw, you'd hope the channel could hang on to a better share of it's audience than that for the whole evening.

BBC One are quite weak in Q2 Saturdays, but they'll be helped by two doses of FA Cup football, plus Eurovision, to support three nights before BGT ends. Those one off events just show exactly why the channel doesn't have a returner in the slot, though. Scheduling to avoid those events and dodge the worst of BGT clashes on the other side is almost impossible - and it's played havoc on everything from Lloyd Webber shows, Doctor Who and The Voice itself over the past decade. Difficult to see what people would have the channel do (with at least a reasonable chance of success), to be honest.


It should be noted that both Corden and Myers will be incredibly dependent on their lead in. And at 11.35, Fallon in NBC easily trumps Letterman on CBS (3.7m to 2.5m last week, and more than double in the demo). In fact, Letterman's ratings have stunk for quite some time now - so I don't think anyone will be surprised or dismayed by Corden's figures there.

A quick look at DS's ratings articles suggests 9 editions of Strictly Come Dancing (exc final and Blackpool) performed better than 9.58m in the overnights.


EE had 10.84m (44.7%) and 10.3m (41.7%) on the Thursday of its anniversary week.

It was being compared to BGT's audience of 10.13m.

As someone who completed A Levels a couple of years ago I can tell you I've heard plenty actually . I'm going to give up now as I'm never going to agree that the baftas are anything other than a joke.