BIB: That's not really a big issue looking at the ratings that Newzoids and JR have been getting.

The scheduling for XF in this case is a bit of a lose-lose situation, they can't do a Friday show due to viewers being out partying, they can't carry it on too late and they can't rush the show. In this sense, the two-hour shows last year were a blessing as they got to flesh it out without running too late, however, it was a bit of a drag getting through three weeks of SCC.

Max profits may have been achieved by shortening the shows, though I think audience decline tends to happen after 9.30 rather than 9 as others have suggested. They should avoid dragging anything over 10pm this year.

I'm glad Syco are putting quality first as usual, as this will help word-of-mouth, and reputation will in-turn bring more viewers in. It's a well though-out, common-sense way of organising the show.

It'll be interesting to see if the ratings for Newszoids and Ross are affected by the later start. My guess is that the number holds and the shares rise. If that happens, the message will be clear to ITV.

Starting the Sunday XF show before 8pm is lunacy. It seems odd that they are trying to protect Victoria rather than their franchise show.

Don't mess about with the start of Victoria. If they push it back to 9.30pm, that means viewers who watch Poldark first then catch up with Victoria on +1, have then got to wait 30minutes to watch it. They are more likely to then record it, thus decreasing the overnights rating.

Victoria needs to stay at 9pm. Its doing well. Moving its start time will only bugger up viewers.

With Newziods and JR on later. Newziods will be at 2.5m again, but JR will drop below 2m because Ross just seems weak whever he's scheduled. The share will likely rise a couple of points though.

Tonight. I don't think Paranoid looks like it will do very well. Good cast, cliche storyline. I think it'll launch with 4.1m, dropping next week.

Unforgotten was so much better. I'm glad ITV renewed it.

Patrick Foster ‏@patrickfoster2 44m44 minutes ago

Had been rumours C4 were planning to start Bake Off ad-free,to help migrate viewers. Not true;but it will run longer than 1hr to include ads

Patrick Foster ‏@patrickfoster2 52m52 minutes ago

Paul Hollywood's C4 deal was agreed Weds eve. He phoned BBC to tell them. Beeb rushed forward Mary announcement to catch C4 on the hop.

It's time for a new season of the DS Ratings Prediction Game!

With week one upon us it's time predict how returning drama The Fall will figure, whether The Level will be at a good level and how Morgana Robinson's The Agency will pull in the viewers. Will Strictly be up year-on-year for it's results and how will The X Factor do for the first Judge's House show of the series? Could Ambulance put the BBC One 9pm slot in need of life support or race away from the opposition? Is Damned damned from the off?

Why not have a go at predicting accordingly? Everyone's welcome, whetehr you're a new player, lapsed or a regular! Just click HERE, left click 'Quote', delete the quote marks and get predicting!

Thank you to everyone who takes part in advance.

Thanks for the link. Strong alternative to TV By The Numbers, will look at both from now on.


Pah! That was never likely was it? It's costing them a bomb. Ad-free was a non starter of an idea, even for the first episode.

Interesting though that it will run beyond an hour, negating the need for overly significant format tweaks in order to trim it down.

I don't think it should matter to ITV if Victoria falls (ahem) below Poldark. The show is already a success and nobody is going to worry about the drop when the reason will be obvious. Since Poldark is an ITV drama too, it's even less of a problem.

The ratings of XF are far more important to ITV from a PR and financial sense. The Sunday show will get over 1m fewer viewers than the Saturday one. Poor optics.

She actually started on C4, did a number of shows with them and then went to ITV to do a flop daytime cookery/chat show. Only ended up on the BBC after that.
Also Nigelia judged that flop cookery show "The Taste" on C4 in 2014.

Disappointing that the BBC took advantage of Paul Hollywood's courtesy.

The whole thing has become a squabble between children.

Of course the BBC are going to take advantage. Why wouldn't they? C4 would have done the same had Mary Berry gone over to C4.

There was no advantage gained. It was pretty pointless and doesn't encourage any future common courtesy.

You can't sacrifice Victoria's numbers to boost TXF. Just because Victoria is over 5m, doesn't mean they can let it drop 1m viewers just to make sure TXF starts at 8pm.

ITV need viewers to watch Victoria LIVE in order to sell ad space that makes them money. Just because Victiria falls below Poldark, of which ITV own both, doesn't automatically mean ITV will still recommission Victoria.

As it stands, with Victoria overnighting 5m-5.5m, and consolidating cose to 8m its dead cert for a recommission. But due to the cost, if it fell below 5m often, it would be on thin ice as to a second series.

Its best to keep it at 9pm.

Two things: I don't think the rating would drop much after 7 days. The overnight might, though even that's questionable since it's possible all that would happen is XF would eat up Poldark overnights.

Secondly, ITV know what Vixtoria is now. If it was to drop they would know why and would have to decide if it was worth it or not. It'll be valuable metrics for the future; I don't think it'd affect Victoria's renewal at all.

Some people on this thread haven't even thought of any other Motives for Paul to leave other then the money which just shows how carried away some people are getting. He wasn't getting a presenting job on top gear and who knows what if bbc were not offering any other shows that attracted him e.g daytime shows ( I do know that its a big if). With channel 4 he is definitely getting more money and they will definitely give him shows. So from a personal view the move is a great career choice and I wouldn't be surprised if he comes out with like an autobiography closer to when bake off starts on c4 describing how bbc didn't offer him anything to increase hype.

Victoria must be very floggable internationally especially US. Agree it needs to stay at 9pm. Getting it established is critical.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/...sterpiece-pbs/

You as well then.

Courtesy would perhaps be to not go to Channel 4?

Channel 4 wanted to get all the press about Bake Off moving while it was still on BBC1. No problem in the BBC getting their press release out. Either way the result would have been the same. People saying good on Mary for staying and people saying Paul went for the money. Which is more or less what is coming through when you read Patrick Foster's story.

That's nonsense. There is no common courtesy when one channel buys another channel's show or one person leaves one channel for another.

Hollywood on a million apparently and not the insane £7m that's been bandied around today:


And it seems Mary never seriously considered C4:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...ake-off-on-th/

Bake Off will stay on Channel 4, it'll get decent numbers but I doubt it'll be 10m, maybe 5/6m. Advertisers will still want to advertise in it. But I'm not sure it'll be as big as Channel 4 expect.

Right now Bake Off does feel tainted and Channel 4 is fighting a lot of PR fires as is Love Productions. BBC are coming out of this far better in terms of PR.

Those are my observations.

As soon as Bake Off went to Channel 4 Mel, Sue and Mary weren't interested. They would have been offered considerably more money and they weren't interested. And that's why the narrative to the story is positive for Mel, Sue and Mary because they turned down a move and the story for Paul is that he went for the money.

In the UK it has an "A Netflix Original Series" title card before the start.

Looking at the front pages of the newspapers this morning, they are all painting Paul badly. I think C4 are going to have to work very hard to turn this disaster around.