Is NYD becoming the new Christmas Day for big ratings over the holiday period?

As viewers are drifting away from Christmas Day with nothing topping 7 million overnight, maybe we will see more emphasis on NYD.

Well, after a disappointing few months from TV ratings wise from September onwards, a strong start for 2016 last night.

Great for Sherlock, and that Eastenders rating actually caught me by surprise and is around 1.5m higher than I expected. No idea where that came from! Is that the highest since the Who Killed Lucy storyline almost a year ago?

MBB has a strong rating given the time slot and when it stands alone, but down on the last time.

Very good night for C5 with the final of Strongest Man and A Good Way to Die Hard, especially as those are excluding +1 I'm guessing.

NYD is a completely different beats to a normal day though. The BBC promote EE with dramtic trailers, and on the day the soap faces nothing on ITV. A bit of competition on Xmas Day from ITV and its knocked down.

This year is a signal that the BBC should revert back to having MBB on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. It worked best there with very high ratings and would provide an anchor to both nights. They should try something new in the late slot on Christmas Day and next New Year's Day will probably be Sherlock again.

I think the repeats are the problem. On my PVR, I set a series link for MBB (for the two new specials) and every repeat has been recorded and I think that is the issue - too many repeats. However, I can see why people are tiring of it - it's very much the same thing. Shame because last night's episode was very funny. Ah well.

Coming from a non EastEnders fan, and I have really stuck the knife in this past fortnight, I hope next week rates well. Going off their new trailer it looks fantastic, and very emotional.

The late night comedy on christmas Day 2016 could be Car Share

A big YES to this.

Yes, one of TV's most resilient formats it would seem. I can remember it as far back as the early 80's on ITV with Derek Hobson. Didn't they used to have a "girl lift" back then? Im probably making that up.

Making this Sunday an even more interesting prospect …

There's going to be a live show in July and two Christmas specials.

ITV hope Beowulf will be a 5 series arc, and yet have schedule it at 7pm where the last fantasy drama flopped. Its not like J&H even started well. I sense this one wil be yet another schedule blunder.

And then a couple more films. Brendan O' Carroll making sure the brand is well and truly soaked dry.

If I was ITV I would have started Beowolf on New Years Day at 7pm

Him claiming that automatically means its rubbish.

You have to wonder if ITV the broadcaster and ITV Studios actually communicate with one another re content. Given that commissioning editors are notoriously all over titles they order, where were they in the case of both these series? Or is it the case that ITV has such a thin track record in this genre that they didn't actually know what they were doing?

No-one mention Atlantis. A Merlinesque vision is fine but my word there is a lot riding on those first two or three ratings. The public have to give it a chance-but its not always a given that they will these days.

Escpecally if its against Countryfile.

Its against 30 mins of Countryfile and Still Open All hours

EE 7.34m at 6.30pm

Corrie 6.73m + 222k
Corrie 6.25m + 290k

ED 6.04 + 208k

The 8.4m for Sherlock might shoot up a little bit when the chunk of Dickensian which ran into its slot is taken into account.

The Euros, too - the Beeb have nabbed undoubtedly the most interesting fixture of the group stages.

Missed that, so thanks. Hopefully they promote the live show to death.

Gosh, a much bigger figure than any would like to admit they predicted.

Having watched the first episode of Beowulf, 7pm shouldn't be an issue for it as it is family friendly enough and nowhere near as unsuitable for the slot as J&H. It is comfortably pre-watershed (episode 1 is at least).

The problem is that they have put it on Sundays not Saturdays where it just seems like a really odd fit and I don't think the audience will be looking for it. BBC1 has that crucial older audience locked in and the likes of Merlin and Atlantis haven't skewed particularly young in the past.

Plus, much like J&H, despite looking impressive, the onscreen trailers haven't quite popped. Also it has no well known stars in it which is really unhelpful for getting the older audience in. I smell disaster sadly.

EE needs to go to 2 half hour episodes next year on xmads day.

A massive cliff hanger before the break and capitalise on the social media interest that will generated.

Last night was a really strong couple of episodes - I think that if they had kept the 'shock' of Dean and Shirley plunging into the lake out of the trailers, then it would have had added dramatic effect.

Congratulations to EE for finally getting decent ratings since Feb. I hope that the mistakes made in 2015 can be learned from, and that we head into 2016 in a much stronger position. Ratings will of course go back down, but hopefully we can see the show in a healthier place.

Merlin skewed old didn't it after Strictly. Both Countryfile and SOAH are going to be strong opposition for that demo. Plus Jekyll and Hyde totally bombed in that same slot. On the face of it, it doesn't look good. Aside from everything else, those who do tune in have got to be hooked straight away so that they will come back. Tall order.

I think EastEnders is the standout from yesterday for me. That 8pm number is a real boost for it and the earlier episode also did really well given the slot. OK for Emmerdale but very mediocre for Corrie, although worth remembering that the lack of tapechecking will be hurting the ITV soaps. Also remember that EE did run into Corrie's 8.30 slot which will have dented it slightly.

Great rating for Sherlock. Perhaps tapechecking will have it slightly higher still but it did well. Down on last time but most things are down and even the big event programmes like Sherlock are not exempt it seems.

Very disappointing for Mrs Brown. The slot didn't help but it might be as low as 5.4m tapechecked. I think it is getting tired, the repeats don't help and the movie did damage the brand somewhat. It got 7.9m last year just an hour earlier, the slot won't have helped but it didn't make 2.5m of difference. The show itself is losing its grip. It'd be really interesting to see how it did for a proper series away from Christmas.