Looks a right load of tosh. But my jaw dropped more to see Rory Bremner co-hosting TOS. Surely he has more to give us than that BBC! Give him a decent job!

I remember those! It now seems odd to see Match of the Day pushed back, but it seemed normal at the time.

Id have kept it on Saturday nights, but started it in July.

I expect the dates were all set in stone before they knew they'd lost it, though.

I think the best they can hope for is for it to settle at Ninja Warrior levels, but it has a good chance of ending up like that Jones flop or Prized Apart.

And that's not even counting Harry Price: Ghost Hunter and Peter & Wendy even if they were one offs. Yes, ITV should air drama but they should also give the new shows a chance - I think they would have been better off placing Jericho on Friday's (against Shetland and football) and sacrificing Mr. Selfridge on Thursday's to be honest.

The Village tricked us with the trailer! Once it started viewers drifted away. I heard they tried to make it lighter in series 2 but the damage was done. Peter Moffat had a 5 Year plan for it. Ended after two. Its passing wasn't mourned.

Possibly any night would have been the wrong night for Jericho. Let's see how episode 2 does.

People saying Jericho is big, bold and ambitious. Is it for us or for abroad? I'd say Happy Valley was more ambitious in terms of storytelling as well as The Missing. Neither needed too many sweeping panoramic shots to work.

And I agree about ITV still having loyalty. Viewers will watch a drama if it appeals to them. Safe House, Code Of A Killer and Black Work did.

All three playing out on a Coronation Street supported Monday as did Cilla and, of course, Broadchurch. Downton Abbey got a boost from The X Factor in it's pomp... or approaching it's pomp at the very least. When was the last time a drama took off on ITV away from a Sunday or Monday?

Just saw a trailer for The Getaway Car. It might work a little. Needs to get 4m to be anything approaching a hit.

https://youtu.be/Ja1xLh4vKXs

You could say that all of those were scheduled well....which brings us back to Jericho.

After Rory Bremner did Strictly all bets are off! He should be doing a comedy satire show on BBC2. The ones he did last year rated well.

ITV are very limited schedule wise if the only days they can launch anything is on Sunday and Monday's - all the BBC have to do is air something half decent on both nights (say, War & Peace and Silent Witness) and they're stymied.

I think the situation for each drama might be along these lines:

A) Jekyll and Hyde: They genuinely thought they were doing right by it. It was very much planned, conceived, commissioned and made as a weekend teatime drama. Charlie Higson has said so all along and even now is saying the same. They could have held it back until early 2016 but would that really have been much easier? Plus the filming schedules on these long (10+ episode) series dictates that they need a decision on a second series pretty sharpish (see Atlantis/The Musketeers) so delaying it too far into 2016 would have meant the cast would have all gone off to do other things and a second series would be tricky even if the show was a success. I think they thought Sunday was a better bet than Saturday as it'd get a headstart on Strictly that it wouldn't get on Saturday and they probably saw how Merlin and even Atlantis initially had done well against X Factor so thought a drama could play against Strictly. Obviously they got it wildly wrong but I don't think they'd have had much more luck elsewhere. Some said they'd have gone for Wednesday at 8pm, but it would have felt out of place there and it's not like the episode they played there did any better than the rest, it actually did worse. I think they'd have had major problems with 9pm because despite the complaints it was still essentially a kids show and would have felt too childish. They got it wrong tonally which meant it didn't really fit into any slot.

B) Beowulf: This one is more difficult to defend as they'll have seen how J&H flopped on Sunday. But equally I'd suggest yet again that it wouldn't have done any better elsewhere. I think with this one as much as anything else they knew they had a flop on their hands. I think it would have flopped anywhere. It was a really difficult sell, the trailers didn't pop, it had no well known faces in it and with hindsight it was a bad commission and I suspect they may have realised that in the run up to transmission. Yes they still promoted it like hell but imagine how badly it would have done if they hadn't.

C) Jericho: The slot here quite clearly doesnt work and was bad scheduling. If they've got loads of dramas on air through the Spring still then perhaps it's a case of over-commissioning. Alternatively if they don't it's a waste. Of course again the danger of delaying it too far is the cast's options on their contracts running out so they'd have to make a renewal decision before it even aired which is always risky. I do think they've commissioned too many Sunday type dramas and they clearly don't have slots for them all. You could say why commission it at all which is a fair argument but they're probably hoping to flog it elsewhere as it's ITV Studios. I do wonder if they planned this for Sundays and got cold feet (about what they'd have to put against Midwife at 8pm as much as anything else), but it's not like they had any other slots for the 2 hour crime dramas so I'm not sure if that's the case. Perhaps they originally wanted Jericho on Mondays and Benidorm on Thursdays (where it aired in 2014) but swapped them to avoid putting Benidorm up against BBC1's more popular fun in the sun comedy drama? Crozier has spoken about how much BBC1 came out of the traps strongly in January last year and there's clearly been an effort to put more into January on ITV this year, but Jericho seems to be the victim of other shows (established shows) getting the slots that suit them best. Birds of a Feather did decently last night but was a really incompatible lead-in too, they could have supported it more. It does feel like it has been completely wasted. With this one I think delaying it until later in the year might have been the best bet, although then again, what do they put against Death in Paradise? A factual series would most likely do even worse.

As much as I know people think ITV are out to get the BBC, I don't think they'd deliberately piss away three big budget dramas just to make a few snide remarks in a possible future government submission.

Why do the DS ratings reports leave out BBC2? Also why is Channel 5's Classic Car Show now repeated on ITV4? When did that jump channels?

Wow really? I mean firstly the BBC aren't as bitter as posters on here. But mainly because they've paid millions for it and have been criticised as it is for that. "Burning it off" would be an inexcusable waste of licence fee money.

Unforgotten did OK on a Thursday. Enough for a second run at least. Averaged 5.8m consolidated I think.

Or ITV can catch a break and BBC1 show something like Silk on Monday and Ripper Street on Sunday. Dramas which ITV saw off with DCI Banks and Mr Selfridge respectively. Not every drama is strong so wait until they're out of the way.

DCI Banks and Mr Selfridge did well due to weak drama as competition on BBC1. Target the weak ones and avoid the strong ones if you can.

I'd forgotten about Unforgotten... er, no pun intended. Did that have a lead out from For the Love of Dogs?


But air what in their stead? I remember the mass criticism ITV got for scheduling Bring Back Borstal against Death in Paradise last year. I suppose they could have tried what I said earlier and aired Jericho on Friday's, sacrificing an already ailing Mr. Selfridge against Death in Paradise.

Maybe its just a one off before the launch?

Exactly, show a drama, they are accused of bad scheduling, show factual, they are accused of gifting BBC1 an artificially high audience. Launching a major drama on a Friday is unlikely to have gone down well here either. They can't win.

All good points. It seems to be a snowball effect of lots of little mistakes building up to create three failures.

As for Death in Paradise, I think the best thing is just to take a hit against it with something cheap if they don't want Benidorm against it. It's only eight hours, and 7pm-9pm is strong enough on Thursdays, anyway.

ITV's bizarre rant about films on BBC One is probably what's made people think they're trying to get the BBC nobbled. It came from nowhere, and undermined any valid points they might have had in their submission. There are more films in the shoebox under my bed than there are on BBC One primetime in the course of a year, and they don't even rate well.

Does anyone know how BBC2, C4, and C5 did at 8pm last night?

When you show factual you know you're gifting the opposition a big audience and yet BBC1 and ITV do that against soaps. If the factual is good it can get 3/4/5m. That's what happened when BBC1 put Eat Well For Less against Emmerdale on Thursdays at 8pm. For The Love Of Dogs took off when EastEnders was crap.

Better to waste that than some other programming in some popular slots. Drama competition happened regularly in the past and it was survival of the fittest. Now even with catch up channels don't want certain shows facing big competition. ITV delayed Mr Selfridge by a few weeks to avoid Sherlock in 2014. You can't avoid big shows indefinitely but sometimes channels should to protect their programmes.

Friday is a dead day for drama, even established shows hate going there like New Tricks. It's a day for low performing shows or flops. It's an elephant's graveyard for drama. Hello Shetland, The Musketeers and Mr Selfridge!

ITV can win if they're smart, same as BBC1.

Certainly do Tommy. Here you are...

World's Sneakiest Animals (BBC2): 1.82m / 8.2% share
Location, Location, Location (C4): 2.13m / 9.6% share
Britain's Bloody Crown (C5): 0.75m / 3.4% share

The thing about Death In Paradise is that I wouldn't be surprised if a few here thought it was popular because it had no competition, so Jericho stood a good chance of doing well opposite it. Now we know different.

They are its true. However they have paid 11 million for this season iirc, I guess the licence fee requirement rather demands they make the most of it having spent that kind of money.
I actually think it will do even better with fresh faces on the panel.

Agree re Dickensian, Dickens always feels like it should be pre Christmas. January is flat as a pancake and its playing out like a spent Christmas record.