Thanks Ray.

I knew this wouldn't do well. Saw a bit yesterday. Not very good at all.

True to a point. BGT had several repeats but the biggest chunk always goes on the original broadcast.

Ray, do you have a number for Celebrity Chase (excluding HD)? Countryfile suggests the total audience was quite low so interested to see how it did.


I'd agree with that. It has been far better than last year. A pity this week's overnights have been a little on the underwhelming side after the bigger numbers last week. Still doing well though.

The Chase Celebrity special: 2.96m (16.7%) inc + 1

If you're around Mike, do you have a top 20?

2.38m (13.4%)
Edit: seen Lewie's post

Thanks both. Not very good. Not much better than Go For It and I think we'd all call that a flop. That Sunday 7pm slot has been a nightmare for ITV for ages as Countryfile just mops up the older audience. The Chase might do slightly better next week at 6.30pm with a headstart.

It won't work without Lynda Baron. After Arkwright and Granville she was the biggest character of the original.

Countyfile affected by the Archers?

No. The Archers was on around 8pm.

Radio 4+1?

It doesn't work without Arkwright!

Now you're being silly!

Fabulous for both shows. Very little to choose between them. No surprise that the younger audience of TXF is watching it on catch up. My wife and I have not seen either episode from this weekend yet.

Friday Top 10 (inc. +1)

1 ITV - 07:30 PM Coronation Street 5.860m 32%
2 BBC One - 08:00 PM EastEnders 5.801m 30%
3 ITV - 08:30 PM Coronation Street 5.775m 28%
4 ITV - 07:00 PM Emmerdale 5.667m 34%
5 BBC One - 06:30 PM Regional News and Weather 4.875m 31%
6 BBC One - 06:00 PM BBC News at Six 4.427m 31%
7 ITV - 09:00 PM Joanna Lumley's Japan 3.309m 17%
8 BBC One - 07:00 PM The One Show 3.084m 18%
9 BBC One - 08:30 PM Would I Lie to You? 2.917m 14%
10 ITV - 06:00 PM ITV Regional News 2.853m 20%

Friday Top 10 (inc. +1) (not including the five main channels)

1 E4 - 07:00 PM Hollyoaks 759k 4.5%
2 ITV2 - 09:00 PM Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason 640k 3.8%
3 ITV3 - 08:00 PM Foyle's War 564k 2.9%
4 ITV2 - 11:05 PM Family Guy 495k 5.0%
5 E4 - 08:00 PM Fantastic Four 442k 2.3%
6 Film4 - 09:00 PM 2 Guns 440k 2.6%
7 ITV2 - 11:35 PM Family Guy 432k 5.6%
8 E4 - 10:00 PM Celebs Go Dating 396k 2.6%
9 BBC Four - 10:30 PM Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie 385k 3.2%
10 E4 - 06:30 PM The Big Bang Theory 373k 2.4%

It was on from 7-8pm exactly the time Countryfile was on

I think it's good silly fun, not as funny as the original but still nice to watch. It's written like Last Of The Summer Wine now though.

Two 45 minute gameshows starting at 6:30 could work. Catchphrase and one other. Bullseye is a Sunday classic.

I didn't know that.

I think that's accurate. Just like the 'glory days' it's still staged and scripted, still features sob stories and joke acts, but crucially it's not taking itself seriously, is well produced and has a winning panel (the old-school originals plus Nicole).

Saturday's episode was average but last night's was excellent. Even in its heyday audition episodes would vary in quality, so nothing's really changed there. What has changed is all the ugliness from the post-2010 era has been removed and a heavy dose of nostalgia has been added in, with 2016 production values.

As I said the day after the premiere, there's isn't a lot more they can do to improve the programme now (at auditions at least) - we'll see how Bootcamp, 6 Chairs, Judges Houses and Lives are produced; if they have the same magic touch, it should do okay this year - at least not sustain losses, and possibly be marginally up. Also depends how the scheduling works this year - I think XF should have shorter live shows (1h45 max) and avoid SCD clashes where at all possible.

If, then, they can keep the same panel next year (which I imagine will involve throwing a LOT of money at Sharon O) they could see another rise next year as viewers will see they're sticking with a winning formula. Anyway, got ahead of myself there, we'll see how next weekend does.

Interesting that the largest shares are for the tradition soap times of 7 and 7:30. They're still the times most would know when the soaps are on. I've no clue when the other episodes are on and so just avoid looking at itv until 9pm. I suspect millions of people do the same.

I don't know when EE is on either but I will check BBC1 adter 8pm.

The sentence I hear a lot about X Factor this year is best series since 2010., It's doing something right.

I'm not sure what all of the ugliness was on TXF after 2010...??

When I think of the great rows and squabbles I think of these judges, especially Sharon. Didn't the XF peak with Cheryl Tweedy? There were rows then too.

From ITV Media:

Saturday Top 10 (inc. +1)

1 ITV - 08:00 PM The X Factor 7.436m 36%
2 BBC One - 08:00 PM Casualty 3.912m 19%
3 BBC One - 10:45 PM BBC News 3.781m 26%
4 BBC One - 07:00 PM Pointless Celebrities 3.570m 21%
5 BBC One - 08:50 PM Last Night of the Proms 3.124m 17%
6 ITV - 09:00 PM Newzoids 3.061m 16%
7 ITV - 07:00 PM Go For It 2.862m 17%
8 BBC One - 11:05 PM Match of the Day 2.611m 27%
9 ITV - 06:15 PM ITV News & Weather 2.209m 16%
10 ITV - 09:30 PM The Jonathan Ross Show 2.204m 12%

Saturday Top 10 (inc. +1) (not including the five main channels)

1 Sky Sports 1 - 11:30 AM Man United v Man City 1.174m 14.1%
2 ITV3 - 09:00 PM Midsomer Murders 762k 4.3%
3 BT Sport 1 - 05:00 PM Liverpool v Leicester 719k 4.9%
4 Film4 - 09:00 PM Taken 2: 674k 3.8%
5 ITV3 - 06:00 PM Midsomer Murders 513k 3.2%
6 ITV2 - 09:00 PM The Xtra Factor: Live 486k 2.6%
7 ITV2 - 07:10 PM The Waterboy 474k 2.5%
8 BBC Four - 09:00 PM Beck: Gunwald 463k 2.5%
9 Sky Sports 1 - 03:00 PM Golovkin: K.O King 438k 5.0%
10 CBeebies - 09:00 AM Something Special 427k 6.5%

I think this weekend's figures for X Factor - specifically the gap to last year - will probably end up being quite close to the "average" pattern across the remainder of the series. Certainly the opening weekend was down a little more than expected (-0.53m), and last week by contrast looked much too high (+0.67m), so I think somewhere inbetween as was the case over the last couple of days (-0.3m) looks a little more realistic. It may be that without the Paralympics it can find a couple of hundred thousand extra, but I wouldn't have thought it would be impacting much more than that. So I think very similar numbers to last year but ultimately a little bit down would be my best guess for the moment.

If they hadn't dropped Grimshaw and the dire presenters of last year, it'd be down more than that, there's no doubt about that. So overall they'll be reasonably happy - that boring term manageable declines applies here. This is very much in that category, so job done.


Notable because they were playing for the highest ever total on The Chase (£140k) but still not enough to boost viewing figures to any great extent; remains disappointing.

OK, so this show continues to impress me. Is there nothing it can't do, nowhere it won't perform? It's starting to feel that way.

I know it wasn't a same-week repeat in the end, but it's still relatively recently that it was first shown (April 2016: 1.3m) and it's actually done a job for Five there in the toughest 9pm slot of the week against two major dramas and live sport on Four. It even managed to get the better of a new Horizon on BBC Two.

Still, it's very very lazy to play repeats there especially when a new series of the show is running midweek. It's probably the most important show on the channel at the moment in terms of ratings, so they need to look after it more and not overexpose it like this.