Without competition, BB is rating well this year. C5 should have waited to see how it did when the Euros and LI ended before announcing the early finish.

No match on. Last time that happened was the first Saturday which got 1.02m. It wasn't anything special. Well I found it more fun but nothing big happened.

I can't see why it wouldn't rate similar to those two occasions when Murray was in the final.

I don't know what the weather was like in those days but it's neither here nor there today, so that will also be a benefit. Should be looking at similar 11m avg 16m peaks really.

Anything for the ladies final yesterday?

Now that I could agree with.

I remember it being incredibly hot on the day of the 2013 final, think that's why the shares were bigger than the 2012 final.

ITV don't seem too bothered by the relatively low ratings anyway, good summer filler for them. C4 or C5 would get more out of the series.


Thanks. Bit of an odd one then really.

That seems to apply to most film rights these days, they are generally more useful for C4 and C5. ITV seems to get least use out of them of the terrestrials as obviously the BBC uses them a lot at Christmas.

The Hobbit movies don't feel quite as good a fit for ITV as the Bond or Potter movies which they seem to get better value out of. Although I believe they lost the Potter titles to Sky for a while. That has happened before and they got them back so I suspect they'll pop up again. They haven't repeated them since last Summer which might help as they were severely overexposing them. They always got a lot of value out of them at Christmas and with the Fantastic Beasts movie coming out this Autumn they could have a good run out of them this year if they get the rights back, but for the same reason Sky might be keen to keep hold of them.

What about Disney titles, could we see ITV make a play?

We're currently seeing a bit of a shift away from C5 to C4 at the moment following the success of The Jungle Book, although Disney remain open to deals with all broadcasters seemingly.

Could ITV swoop next or are early evening films of much less value to ITV?

I think a lot of people will be disappointed in the morning, doesn't seem to be as much interest round this year, probably because they've "seen it" already twice in the past three years.

I certainly think they should show an interest. We've seen the odd Disney title turn up on ITV in the past but they've been few and far between. It's the kind of thing I can imagine Kevin Lygo being interested in. He's already expressed interest in US imports and can clearly see more value in them than his predecessor so I wouldn't be surprised to see him take the same attitude towards movies.

I think early evening films could be of great value to them. They often skew young (I vaguely remember about 25% of the audience of the Potter repeats were 16-34s which for ITV is very young skewing) and the right titles can also skew more male than ITV's usual output. Not to mention they can cover long slots and probably work out to be cheaper than a lot of original content.

For instance, I definitely think a run of family films on Saturday tea times in the run up to Christmas (around 6-8pm, starting earlier if longer) could tap into an audience, be decent fodder against Strictly and provide a much more appropriate lead-in to X Factor than Celebrity Chase does (I'd put that on Sundays at 6pm).

Could do with Raonic taking this 2nd set.

Kind of a dull final so far with few break opportunities (that in itself not surprising). Close enough in terms of score, but Murray winning a shade cosily for me at the moment. Needs something new to liven it up.

Films add variety to the schedule which is important, so I'd like to see them go down that road and open up a weekly slot in peak on the main channel.

Really curious to see how Lion King does - I would have predicted an even bigger rating than Jungle Book managed but for some reason they are showing it in the summer where I fear it won't quite achieve its full potential. Should still be good for 3m+ but I think in the run up to Christmas it would have done over 4m.

As for Celebrity Chase, a serial underperformer but might do a job for them on Tuesdays?

I think they could only open up a weekly slot like that if they had enough good films to fill it with and at the moment they don't, but if they were to get some more contracts in it could definitely work out. Weekend teatimes would seem to be the best option they've got too.

I think you're right about The Lion King. It feels like a bit of a waste to be showing it where they are. I think 3 million sounds about right although it's weather dependent. I agree it could have been bigger than The Jungle Book if given a similar slot. It should provide a great lead-in to the premiere of Thor that is directly following it, but I think that one will be closer to 2-2.5m.

Celebrity Chase could do a job on Tuesdays but the problem is that it would mean you'd have The Chase on at 5pm and at 8pm and it would feel like overkill. It does never seem to do as well as you'd think it should though. I don't think it works very well as a celebrity format. I notice they're trying some family specials later in the year which could possibly take the primetime format. I think that might work better as the celebrity version isn't as good. I'd probably try it on Sundays at 6pm as it'd probably do as well as it does at 7pm as it wouldn't be against Countryfile and at that time 3-3.5m would be a better base to build the night on than they normally have. Although given that next week they are showing a Celeb Chase repeat at 7pm they clearly don't have that much of an issue with its performance.

That Sunday 7pm slot has been tricky for them for a while though. I remember a couple of years ago Tipping Point repeats at 5.30pm were doing about 2.5m but not long before then new episodes at 7pm had only done about 3m. I think the sixth Corrie may end up going there, possibly joined by Thursday's 8pm Emmerdale.

F1 race was pretty dull and predictable. Tennis going the same way at present.

Scotland did indeed do Reporting Scotland again at 7.30, but it didn't seem so unusual, most people would probably have missed it at 6.30 and since then some major Scottish news had broken in that Murray was through to the final, so they could have got half the programme out of that.


That was because BBC Wales were opting out all afternoon for the Wales victory parade, so in Wales some of the announcements didn't make any sense. But that's not BBC Sport's fault.



Well, yes, this is an issue unique with tennis in that you don't know when the matches are going to start - in the case of Wimbledon you often don't know what days they're going to be on - or how long they're going to go on for, so you're a bit limited in how effectively you can get any kind of contingency plan going, other than to not schedule much of any interest during the fortnight. That said, in the last World Cup we had the news on at midnight due to extra time and I can't see that's much worse than moving the Six O'Clock News to BBC2, especially when the Ten O'Clock News got on as scheduled.

Besides, there are complaints in the other thread that the Beeb came off the football too quickly on Thursday night to get to the news on time. Indeed I was looking in Barry Davies' autobiography the other day and I was reminded that in the Opening Ceremony of the 2000 Olympics, the Beeb got loads of complaints because they moved it over to BBC2, just as the flame was about to lit, because it was time for the One O'Clock News, which seemed a bit pointless. It's the same as how people used to complain when they had the test matches, they would always go off for the news on the hour, regardless of what was happening in the match, and often missed stuff while they were reading the same news stories they'd read out an hour ago.

Under John Birt there was a self-importance about the news that meant it couldn't be interrupted, but that was sometimes to the detriment of programming. I remember when Five Live started, the controller said the news was important, but she was happy for it to be moved around a bit if it was the World Cup Final or something.



Well, the ratings for the 2008 final, the one that went on for hours and hours, would suggest it still has an attraction. Indeed it was a bloody big event in the eighties and nineties when British players didn't have a hope of winning it.

As you say, it is good for the Beeb and for British tennis that it's enjoyed such a consistent period of success. You would assume there would be some kind of legacy. One thing that's different now is that sport is more important for the BBC because it costs more and there's less of it. I remember being hugely surprised in the late nineties when the Beeb started doing those weekends of Davis Cup coverage, before that you never got tennis running until mid-evening on BBC1. In 1994 you still had World Cup matches shown on BBC2, that would never happen these days. Up until the early nineties, the men's final at Wimbledon was on BBC2 with BBC1 showing films and repeats!

It was two years ago I think, wasn't it, on the middle Saturday when Murray wasn't playing but they still decided to carry on on BBC1 until after seven o'clock, when they were scheduled to finish at 5.30, basically because it was more interesting than the repeats they were going to show.


Well, twenty or thirty years ago the idea people would be getting blasé about British players in the final of Wimbledon would seem amazing. I remember the whoops of excitement when Jeremy Bates got into the second week.


I suppose it's impressive that BBC1 was all new between 6.50 and 10.15 last night, which would have been good in any summer, but especially so this summer when there's only four Saturdays between the Euros and the Olympics, which you would assume would be the perfect opportunity to just whack on Indiana Jones again. Albeit, as you say, most of the stuff last night was being burned off, but at least it was new rubbish.

In these turbulent times it's impressive that In It To Win It is exactly the same as it was when it began fourteen years ago, apart from Dale's face of course. In It To Win It is a series that can do very well in the right circumstances - usually in Q1 against very weak ITV opposition, but it's not the kind of thing people rush in to watch.



It was indeed, I remember almost dying of heat exhaustion that weekend. The 2006 Final was, like this year, on the same day as a tournament final, in that case the World Cup, and ITV got its lowest ever audience share that day, and some ITV spokesman said that "major sporting events always affect the ratings" - but they were showing one of them! It probably would be better for the Beeb if Murray took his time with this, so they could move Countryfile to BBC2 and go straight into the Euros, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Be fascinated to see what the Formula One gets as well, I think the scheduling of this calendar is ridiculous, putting a Grand Prix on the same day as two of the world's biggest sporting events. At least there aren't any during the Olympics this time.

So who else is hoping Raonic takes this set purely for the sake of a higher potential rating?

Oooo, Rio 2016 trailer on the Beeb just now. I'm guessing that was its premiere?

Yes it was. I found it a bit underwhelming compared to previous Olympic promos I have to say.

I guess Brexiters are just glad each was won by Brits, rather than those EU European types....

Maybe a 3 set win is best, shorter slot means decent average, viewers can flock to pub/garden/work/laptops now....

Something to eat and then the football

I imagine half time will be its second airing

How was it underwhelming there is going to be a crocodile diving

Predictions on the final tonight?

12.1m average in 90 mins? 13.5m if penalties...peak of 15m?