A monopoly over what?
It has a market share of 70% for news. And just over 50% for radio.

Cowell left the XF and was hardly used on BGT in 2011. The ratings held up. Yeah XF took a hit but it was incremental and was more than just about Cowell.

The show will do better with Mary but it should be a hit without her.

No independent production company is going to agree to that - unless the BBC stumped up a massive amount of cash, up front, for a totally unproven format. Which 95% or more of the time, would be a total waste of precious resources.

If the BBC has to give commissions to indies (which it does) then this kind of thing will happen from time to time. The only thing to be done is invest properly in BBC Studios, free it up a little to compete properly in terms of personnel, and try and ensure as many of the BBCs hits as possible come from there - where the BBC itself can reap the full benefit. That seems to be Tony Hall's idea with the spin-off, and I hope it works.

@Steve Williams: You make excellent points about why the BBC bid so much for MOTD. You also point out that itv could not make the numbers work which suggests that the BBC paid more than it was worth. But they felt it was worth it to them.

That's maybe what C4 just did. It's what BT did for UCL soccer.

As the Guardian made clear, GBBO exists thanks to Love Productions. The Guardian also thinks that the talent will switch to C4.

It's a bit different, though, because ITV decided not to bid because the content didn't work for their specific circumstances - it's mostly out of primetime, it needs quite a lot of resources (they'd have needed to recruit a lot of staff to do it) and they have other football contracts. So while it was nice to have, ITV seemingly didn't think they had to have it and could attract the audiences it could get in other ways. For the Beeb, it didn't matter it was out of primetime, they have the resources to do it and they don't have much other football.

I know the argument is that if nobody else wanted it the Beeb shouldn't have paid so much, but there may well have been a reserve price. They probably didn't know if anyone else was bidding either. And there's no obligation for it to be free to air either.

Isn't it bad though when the UK's biggest commercial network/ station cannot make something like EPL highlights work for them.

ITV already has lots of football people and they'd probably contract it out. I just wonder if they'd put it on at 9:30pm. That's some healthy demographics.

Really C5 should have gone got it.

I wish they had got it too. It would have catapulted them into being a real major player.

Home And Away was a really crafty acquisition though. How many other programmes can people name where the production company was swayed by a longer commitment rather than money?

It's not all about the money money money for everyone.

In a testing day for the BBC, sports commentator John Hunt has signed a new deal with the broadcaster, snubbing ITV's offer to be their new lead commentator on horse racing in the process.

http://www.racingpost.com/news/horse...=last7DaysNews

That is a surprise. Actually very disappointed by that number. Hopefully it can rebound next week. I'm loving the series so far!


Wow! The Last Leg is certainly doing the business for C4. A superb number last night.


Emmerdale not that far behind EE there. More recently I've noticed all the soaps are extremely close to one another, with Emmerdale with the most loyal audience out of the big 3.


Huge E4 number for Hollyoaks last night - it's best rating since Tuesday 28th June which averaged 867k.

I don't know if anyone's noticed this - but the E4 screenings are pretty much all the time ahead of the C4 showing at 6.30pm. I know we don't get the DS round-ups but I've been looking at HO ratings for a while now and using BARB, you can clearly see how the E4 audience has gone way past the C4 episode.

For example: (consolidated ratings for w/e 14th August 2016):

Channel 4 episodes vs E4 (first look) episodes:
Mon: 0.75m vs 0.77m
Tue: 0.74m vs 0.91m
Wed: 0.54m vs 0.76m
Thu: 0.62m vs 0.81m
Fri: 0.56m vs 0.79m

All exclude +1. As you can see every night the E4 showing is ahead of the C4 showing. I remember when DS did their soap ratings round-ups, the C4 episode was always ahead of the E4 episode but over the last few months (maybe a bit longer actually), the trend has been reversed, with the E4 showing at 7pm now ahead.

We don't know if itv offered more. Maybe BBC offered him fewer hours than day after day of horse racing.

He's signed a four year deal and gets to travel the world including going to the Olympics. Might be a better package than what itv offered. Especially as itv may not have horse racing in five years time. It's itv after all.

Cold Feet is still doing fine I would say - the share of 25% is good but I don't think it can afford to drop much more. The first official rating for the show is strong, and I think it is very much capable of adding a further 3 million on timeshift to get it up to 7.9m again.

Secrets of the SAS is doing solid business for Channel 5 at nearly 1 million. I am going to give it a watch later and see what it's like.

We should be grateful it didn't head off to ITV, with an 'All Star Bake Off' edition presented by Keith Lemon (Cake).

Lord Grade's comments on Radio 4 today were quite interesting, "undermines arguement against privitisation...Channel 4 have 'shot themselves in t'foot'"

You can be the judge . . .

We [C4] are a publicly-owned, commercially-funded public service broadcaster. We do not receive any public funding and have a remit to be innovative, experimental and distinctive. You can read more about our remit, and how we deliver against it, in our Annual Report.

Our overall role is to champion innovation in TV, film & digital – nurturing and growing new ideas, formats, views and voices, faces, talent, audiences and production companies.

No Mel and Sue...

https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/stat...19595097387008

Sue and Mel stepping down as hosts. C4 probably already talking to French and Saunders.

Mel and Sue are stepping down

Sandy and Sandra will most probably present.

Where are Olly and Caroline, when your desperate?

Well Love Productions have truly f***** it up haven't they. Ruined Britain's most watched programme.

Mary and Paul next to go?

*slow hand clap*.

Yes.........

Well the directors who sold it get a big bonus, but killed the bird laying the golden egg...

Katherine Ryan and Alan Carr?

Dermot and Davina?

Noel and Mr Blobby?

James Martin and Katie Price?

Rylan and that one off Masterchef?

Well I'd be surprised now if Mary and Paul stay on.

C4 will need to some someone linked to the show, maybe a previous winner as one of the judges.

I'd have Davina McCall as main host (solo, don't need two presenters as will just be compared to Mel and Sue all the time) with previous winner Nadiya Hussian and James Martin as the judges.

Mel and Sue flopped in their own show. They're replaceable. Just need to get the right hosts.

French and Saunders would be fabulous. Pardon the pun.
If the show does flop, the real winner is ITV.

Not really, Bake Off in its current format didn't exactly have many years to go. If the deal with the judges ended this year as well, Mary Berry could have stepped down.

Getting 4x the current price is staggering though.