Content is king.


Carol is the best weather presenter, certainly on Breakfast TV by a mile. Dopey Laura from GMB, I would say bimbo, but she's not good looking, and then you got Naz on Sky who's good looking but doesn't seem to know what she's on about.

Isn't Laura Tobin ex-BBC?

Laura is anything but dopey, she's highly intelligent, but is more down to earth than other weather presenters. She genuinely knows what she's talking about, unlike others.

Laura can't be that dopey, seeing as she has completed a degree at university, which is unlikely of her critics on this forum...

Yep. ITV pinch their weather forecasters, too!

For some reason ITV News Central took on the Genelle for the weather after she was let go by the BBC, no surprises she's bad.

Well she comes across as dopey on screen... And she doesn't give me the impression she's that knowledgeable at all.

What are people expecting for Spike tonight?

The launch night ratings will surely be hit by the 3.8 million Virgin Media customers unable to receive the channel.

Channel 5 giving it a helping hand by putting out a poor line-up on the main channel.

Hard to say. The standout programme on launch night is going out at 11pm, which will obviously keep a lid on the overnight.

I don't see anything doing that well tonight, especially with the ongoing cable situation, the need for some Freeview viewers to retune, the confusion over 5USA's channel swap, and some problems with the channel on Sky in Wales; as well as a fairly lacklustre launch night lineup for the most part. It's fair to say it doesn't have much in its favour.

But on the plus side from Spike's point-of-view C5 is effectively closing down for the night at 9pm so that might help ratings along a bit. However if nobody is watching C5 to see the Spike promos in the first place then that could just be an all round fail. Fully expecting a disastrous set of figures for the main channel from 9pm - CSI NY won't be much above 300,000 I wouldn't have thought which would surely be a record low for them in that slot.

Jason Manford has a new show on ITV

Jason Manford's topical show It's A Funny Old Week has been picked up by ITV. The commission, for a run of episodes on Monday nights this summer, follows three end-of-year specials and two unaired pilots.

This is what happens when Channel 5's head of scheduling - Craig Morris - is also put in charge of overseeing the Spike launch. He's just looking after his new baby.

But I think there were other ways of going about things. If it were me I'd have had the first ep of Breaking Bad at 10pm and simulcast on the main channel with the second episode straight after on Spike, and for the rest of the evening C5 would be business as usual with normal programmes full of Spike promos.

So Olympus will air next week at 22:00 in your plan, As that show looks good too.

It's getting poor reviews I'm afraid. Looks a poor acquisition for a new channel needing to make an immediate impact.

The only shows I could recommend on Spike tonight are Lip Sync Battle and Breaking Bad.

But it does gradually strengthen up in the coming days. Notably The Walking Dead on Fridays, Saturday fight nights, Sons of Anarchy, Catch a Contractor, strong film selection, etc.

Looking ahead TV Wise suggests they are closing in on deals for the first two seasons of The Transporter series as well as Canadian drama 19-2.

http://www.tvwise.co.uk/2015/04/spik...an-drama-19-2/

Or perhaps giving others a chance to show their abilities.and finding a decent presenter.
Saves having to continually buy in talent like ITV do on Breakfast. What a success thats proved to be for them......

Shame about the reviews but I will judge it for myself when I watch it. Other content that may be worth viewing is the Wrestling on Saturday nights.

Did we ever get a rating for the Nick Clegg interview on BBC1 Monday night

It was David Cameron's edition tonight.

Don't think I need to hear from David Cameron.

Surely not at 9pm, if so, then that is inappropriate for the slot, would suit Friday nights I'd have thought.

Depends if it's an hour or not. Seems like it might only be 30 mins as a weekly show. Just a guess, but then I suppose they need something to pair Vicious series 2 with...

Could even be a 10:30pm show.

Fair play to ITV's Newzoids for poking fun at key ITV programmes like Broadchurch and Jeremy Kyle.

It was a bit hit and miss but had its fair share of laugh out loud moments, as ever with this type of comedy.

It was a good first show, fell flat in a few places but that's to be expected its good to see a show not afraid to upset people (even their own network!).

Seems a mixed reaction on twitter, either people loved it or hated it. Hopefully it got a good sampling at least.

Agree thought it was very funny in places especially the political stuff.

A bit of ITV news from Broadcast:

- ITV aired the wrong episode of Slow Train Through Africa on Friday (4th episode). More proof of the mess that is ITV.
- ITV has commissioned 6x120 new episodes of Midsomer Murders

3.0m including HD

Newziods has more chance to be a returning series. The Delivery Man will probably be sampled by very few viewers and flop from the 1st episode.

Newziods was fun.