It wasn't in East Sussex

(This is a fun game)

I sense a new game show on.

What did Graham Norton get on Friday night?

I agree the Sun has squeezed as much out of this as possible, and seems to want to moan or destroy anything st the moment, ( bar Sky or people writing it's Collums) seems anything is over exaggerated to try to sell papers, whatever trust readers had in it is being eroded by its bias opinions.

The tabloids have always been like that, that's their business model. It's worse now, with most people looking at news online.

People are much more likely to click an article with the headline "Saturday Night Takeaway RUINED by technical gaffes" than they are "Only one minor fault for Saturday Night Takeaway".

Forced laughter in service of a plug-fest, as usual?

That's why I gave up on chat shows years ago. I can remember Parki sitting down to have a conversation and you felt you were listening into something real.

Sounds like a strange mix of emotions, I doubt the BBC are going to be all that bothered about the clash disrupting their showpiece event in this rare situation. Its the last one as they hand the baton on with what's probably going to be a poor final rating. Weird for the crew, musicians and production staff though if they are having to move on. I wonder if there will be any hints about a possible replacement for Jan 2017 in the coming weeks.

As for SNT, they have gone to some trouble to make the final show more of an event but it hasn't really caught the imagination based on the figure. Might put them off something similar next year.

Disappointing for TVUK, the BBC never solved the post audition/battle drop offs -lets see if ITV can.

But Barcelona is still in Spain and there is (as yet) no Catalonian state. It's not a mistake to have a Spanish flag with Barcelona anymore than it's a mistake to use the UK flag when a Scot wins an Olympic medal.

Yes I caught a few minutes of an interview Parkinson did with Fred Astaire way back in 1976 yesterday. Astaire didn't do many interviews and it must have been quite a coup to get him. It was a quiet gentlemanly conversation where he was allowing this legend to just open up about his career-and he got that just right. I don't think anyone does "quiet" these days, though I actually found the Life Story Piers Morgan did with Ronnie Corbett quite interesting.

I actually love the Norton show. It's more entertaining. It's not supposed to be a serious one. Every now and then, serious issues arise, but I think the reason they get so many great guests is because it is more laid back as opposed to A Listers being asked questions about their life and them refusing to answer it.

If I wanted to watch a more serious interview I'd YouTube a couple of US chat show hosts or watch Piers Morgan's Life Stories.

But anyway, does anyone have the rating? It was one of the better Norton shows in quite some time, since the Chris Pratt, Melissa McCarthy, Jude Law and John Bishop one IMO

Parki was about to interview some of the real greats. He knew how to interview which is more about listening than anything else. That is why it flowed as a conversation. He was a journalist first which showed. Piers (even though I detest him) does have a journalists instinct but his shows are far more formulaic. Others use chat shows as a vehicle for their comedy which is fine if that is what you are looking for.

Yes, I caught a very short bit of the re-run of the 1966 General Election over Easter and who was doing the outside broadcast-no less than MP! Interviewing people about the death penalty which having recently been abolished was highlighted very much as an issue with the dreadful Moors Murders and the approaching trial of Brady and Hindley a few weeks after the election.

The same programme (BBC 2) had an interview with Ginger Rogers by Cliff Michelmore which demonstrated what a good interviewer Michelmore was, and an interview with Rogers by Selina Scott which demonstrated she wasn't.

I wonder how Undercover will do tonight. The type of drama usually does well but the trailer is rather confusing plus we cannot deny the racial aspect of the cast may still have an effect (Hopefully not but it wrong to hide the fact that it may effect its figures)

I think you can tell that ITV are a bit worried over those You're back in the room figures as they devoted a slot in This Morning last week to doing a segment live in the studio (though they had to film the hypnosis off camera). They made some comments about people thinking it is faked and seemed to be trying to prove it was all above board.

Maybe feedback is suggesting the audience think this is all acting and might be preventing big ratings and so they are trying to correct that.

Probably the only reason we are yet to see 'Celebrity You're Back in the Room'. Tonight Keith Lemon is forced to make sense and talk in English and Peter Andre hilariously believes that he is a great singer. Host Philip Schofield is persuaded that nobody likes him any more.

Give it time.

A bit disappointing for the big finale of SNT. I thought it would have been higher than 6.1m (although it is up 0.9m versus the finale last year). It still beat The Voice convincingly - and it's decline this year has been quite staggering. It's current overnight series average stands at 5.8m. The 2015 series averaged 7.4m.

Just looking at the latest consolidated ratings on BARB. The 12th series of Geordie Shore returned with it's best opening rating ever..! - 1.20m inc +1. There's no stopping this show!

A few consolidated stats for 15th series opener of Celebrity Juice (the live episode):

Celebrity Juice (Thu): 1.92m (inc +1)

Live: 978,000
VOSDAL: 176,000
Time-shifted: 761,000

= 1,915,000

Including the Saturday repeat (which consolidated to 547k inc +1) - that gives it a total of 2.46m

Well, as the hugely detailed Cold Feet Wikipedia page points out - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Feet_(series_1) - Cold Feet did get off to a rather slow start. Of course the pilot was kept on the shelf for ages and ended up going out at 10.30 after an overrunning Grand Prix, while as it points out there, in a bit taken from the book about the series, the original slot was 9.30 which was a compromise between the 9pm Granada wanted and the 10pm ITV originally suggested - and the final episode did indeed go out at 10pm. I also remember STV opted out for something or other, and showed it on Mondays. The ratings weren't all that for the first series either.

That said, ITV were incredibly conservative in those days and played it very safe a lot of the time, so it's unsurprising they were a bit lukewarm about it initially. I was absolutely nuts about it at the time, I entering my twenties and I found it proper aspirational fare, I thought it looked fantastic and I did find it very funny. I'm still extremely fond of the first series. And while it didn't rate very well at the start, the demographics were amazing and it was hugely influential, to the extent that there were about a million other dramas along the same lines over the next few years, most of which I also watched.

As mentioned on another of the incredibly detailed Wikipedia pages - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Feet_(series_5) - the final episode in 2003 got over ten million viewers and was in the top 20 for the year, so by the end, it was a very big series for ITV, but it's easy to forget that at the start it was considered quite a risk.

I'm definitely going to watch the new series because I do have happy memories of it, although I wonder if everyone else is as enthusiastic about it. And a lot of my memories of the first series are intertwined with me being at university which was such a happy time for me, I absolutely loved it, and frankly if they revived anything from 1998 I'd get nostalgic about it. If there was a new series of Man O Man I'd be well up for it.

I wonder what people who have never seen it before would make of it, though. Back in 2010, Mike Bullen did something similar to a Cold Feet revival in the shape of Reunited, but that only got as far as a pilot which was flung out in the middle of the World Cup and was a flop - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reunited_(TV_pilot). But it wasn't Cold Feet, of course, with that particular cast.


I would agree with this. Antiques Roadshow had a loyal audience, but also has a substantial floating audience that is perfectly happy to watch it if there's not much else on, but also abandon it if something more interesting comes along. Writing off slots is just encouraging decline.


Well, I would agree with a lot of this, and of course it was ITV's decision to break up that winning Sunday schedule. I know it's a discussion that pops up here quite frequently but it's become no less true. In fact it's quite remarkable to think that it's now eight years since they moved the soaps off Sunday, certainly long enough to allow them to bring them back without looking like an embarrassing U-turn. But then ITV do seem to make decisions at a glacial pace and seem perfectly happy letting stuff slide for years.


Despite my parents forgetting whether they'd watched the first series, they are actually enjoying these series a lot, my dad was keen to inform me how much he enjoyed the first episode of this run. Looks like this is indeed becoming quite a nice little series for the Beeb. I do still expect everyone to forget all about it again the second the run finishes, mind.


Indeed it was, though I must point out again that the scheduling of it has been absolutely dreadful with at least three gaps in transmission, and for no reason whatsoever because it's only been replaced by clip shows. I have no idea what was going on there, and it clearly wasn't doing much for audience loyalty. As for Police Interceptors, I don't watch masses of C5 but I have watched the football and The Tube this week and they seem to have been promoting it quite frequently.


Just to say, although the ratings on a Sunday morning do often come from me via the Broadcast app on Twitter (as those who follow me know, while I'm waiting for the tills to open in Tesco), I don't deliberately only highlight Football League Tonight from C5 to prove a point, it's because I mostly only tweet the ratings I'm personally interested in, so I don't tweet much from C4 either, and I can never tell if NCIS is a repeat or not, whereas I'm always interested in football ratings on all channels. You probably knew that anyway.

You're Back In The Room is bad enough. Anyone who thinks commissioning a Celebrity Your're Back In The Room needs their head testing.

Why would ITV be worried? Is it that if YBITR flops they'll have to find something else for Schofield to do?

Tbh, does he really need to be on a golden handcuffs deal anymore? All the shows he presents are below 3m. Not what I call worthy of keeping oa big pay cheque going.

The Cube, All Star Mr & Mrs, You're Back In The Room are all pretty weak LE series.

Bradley Walsh would be more worthy of a Golden Handcuffs deal with him presenting : The Chase, Palladium, hell even Keep It In The Family was more successful than anything Schofield is doing.

He says into day Mail that he is leaving TV so he can go back on the road with his band

Yes I did catch the Michelmore bit too. It was so innocently nice that its hard to believe such a time existed. Made all the more poignant with his recent death at a grand age. Its all lost in time now, but she did appear to suggest he had look at her watercolour paintings after the interview (if I heard it right). Seems they got on well, but my word where has all the time gone

He said initially he was retiring from TVUK, there was then some doubt but it would seem a final decision made. I think Ricky has been great for the show, a decent bloke and very little showbiz fluff about him. Important in setting a boundary between TVUK and XF.

I would sincerely hope that the viewing nation is sophisticated enough not to disregard a drama on the grounds of skin colour.

Personally, I think that Undercover will be trounced by Home Fires, though, which should please a good few posters here. I've read quite negative press previews about its opening episode. It will be no Night Manager / War and Peace in ratings terms.

Schofield has tweeted a photo of an award won by Room, and I think BBC Worldwide is written on it. I don't think he's tweeted the ratings, though.