Good work for Pub Entertainer of the Year there, perhaps they should bring that back. That said, when Lewie posted some of the regional ratings from that week on Twitter the other day, BBC1's Driver of the Year was riding high in the London chart. That episode of This England almost certainly benefiting from the presence of Panorama at the same time on BBC1 - http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules...don/1977-12-19. Like this year Christmas was on a Sunday so you had the almost-but-not-quite festive week before it where some incredibly unfestive shows are still on.

I always used to say that BBC4 should repeat those top three shows back to back one Christmas. I'll say it again when it's the fortieth anniversary next year.


Yes, I do wish ITV was a bit more adventurous. The time I most watched ITV was when David Liddiment was in charge in the late nineties when they did seem to have a swagger about them and, while they could often be conservative in some of their programmes, they were happy to take risks and just do something to liven up the schedule. Millionaire was the obvious example, they were very brave in their scheduling of that - when I first saw it was being stripped every week, I thought that was very risky - and it became a hit partly because it felt like an event. It made the channel seem more exciting and there was usually something in the course of a week that caught your eye (and, as I've mentioned before, with only one fewer episode of Emmerdale and Corrie than that have now).

What doesn't work is what we had a few years ago when Peter Fincham said they were going to do more entertainment in midweek, and promptly stuck two crap quizzes in The Exit List and High Stakes at 8pm on Tuesday with no publicity and no support, both of which died on their arse, and that was the end of it. Doing it half-arsed like that is no better than not doing it at all. You could say the same about Jekyll and Hyde, I suppose. That had the publicity but none of the support in the schedule, and it was just unsuitable for the slot they gave it.


And yet, in the week of Planet Earth II, surely the most BBC programme imaginable, it's not on the cover. A Netflix series is instead. If you don't like it, or think it's too expensive, don't buy it!



Not just two runs, they've taken a year or so to screen whole series of In It To Win It before now. It gets taken off whenever anything interesting comes about and then stuffed back on whenever there's space. The lottery quizzes are a low priority. I know you have the returning champions on Who Dares Wins but it really doesn't matter that much, nobody will care if they take it off for a month. And as this thread never tires of saying, there are loads of episodes of Pointless Celebrities so if they're waiting for that to finish they'll be waiting a long time.

It's like I say up there, it's always worth shaking things up every so often and creating a bit of an event in the schedules to make the channel look more interesting. It's like when the late and much-lamented Samuel used to say it was "physically impossible" to show something in a certain slot. You can show anything anywhere, if you want!

I agree with those who are saying how solid this line up is and I could happily watch until 8:30. Having said that I can happily watch ITV from Tipping Point through Jonathan Ross but many older viewers can't.

I just hope the BBC has something worth watching after New Year.

Number 10 - The Good Life, on Boxing Day, presumably going up against Coronation Street and knocking the episode out of the top 20. Aggressive scheduling there from BBC1.. "Christmas is ours, ITV. Eff off!"

Number 7: Shades of the recent Bruce's Hall Of Fame? But look at all the people watching TV on NEW YEAR'S EVE. edit: Or was it Bruce's choice of best bits fron the Generation Game?

Number 19: {Shudder}

Escape of the Birdmen premiere joint 2nd in the charts for 1977. The film was released in... 1971.

Add in Planet Earth 2 and BBC1's schedule starts to get a bit meatier as we move towards winter.

A TV movie starring 70s box-office superstar Doug McClure. (ahem!)

BBC1's alternative was
7.00 The Superstars
8.10 Secret Army

Not sure why the viewers would have such a downer on these two.

Thanks Ray.

How different those Christmas 1977 figures look with JICTAR compared to the BBC figures, which had 21m for The Two Ronnies and 18m for The Good Life. They also had 22.5m for The Dirty Dozen which doesn't feature in this list at all!

Just looked up the BBC Genome web site and Bruce's Choice WAS a Generation Game compilation. "including The Brothers Lee". Who remembers the Brothers Lee? Not even Wikipedia apparently. (They were impressionists.)

And after Brucie it was Val Doonican's Old Year Music Show. "Okay, everybody, that's enough television. Let's go and find a New Year party to gate-crash.".

Will Michael McIntyre's Big Show be in place of Pointless or follow Strictly? Last series did well until it went up against BGT. For all the talk of X Factor being weaker, it still gets 5/6m and McIntyre appeals to a similar audience which is why he took a a hit opposite BGT.

There was no live simulcast yesterday so the total is about half a million down on last week's and there was no ad free download available throughout the day. Expect higher timeshifting.

We watched it tonight, so I expect the consolidated numbers will be much closer.

How do you think Planet Earth 2 will do?

I think it will launch with 5m-5.5m. But I can see it settling in 4-5m ballpark, but consolidating well.

It will be interesting to see how its sits alongside the BBC's older skewing line-up. Will it appeal to this demographic as AR does, to give it its big ratings.

It'll certainly dent TXF which I think will be under 6m. But tbh, I would pefer TXF to be knocked than IAC.

The weekend schedule is looking as stacked as I can remember it, really. They've clearly taken the decision this year to try and embrace the Strictly lead-in, regardless of the opposition.

That said, I don't think the schedule's been particularly bare for a while now. There was a lot of hand-wringing about uninspired schedules in September - but the Autumn season always takes a while to get going. Since October began, Mondays have been the only weak spot. There's been three 9pm dramas on air - plus Strictly, Bake Off, The Apprentice and HIGNFY.

I see next Tuesday ITV is showing a Midsommer episode which is S18 Ep4. This is another UK drama I've never actually seen but I'll be interested to see if a repeat can challenge Holby. It has more chance than normal flop shows.

Davina on itv tomorrow in what is an important show for them and then Buble on Thursday also intriguing me.

The problem of McIntyre v BGT is that they're both variety shows. I think it would sit better against X Factor and would grab a few viewers from Strictly as well than it did against BGT.

To be fair that share of 26.9% is a bit lower than what EastEnders normally gets on a Monday so it isn't out there to suggest Halloween had an impact. EE was more likely to be affected by it than the older skewing soaps which are coming off the back of big storylines.

I'm still not buying into the crisis some say it's having. As apart from a couple of dodgy Friday ratings (never its strongest day, but it's the ep with the highest timeshift or second highest IIRC) and this most have rated quite typically for recent times. The other two have just had a boost from airing stunts.

As for it being a terrible episode, no one would know that before they tuned in. I disagree anyway, the story with Dot is very moving.


EE takes a hit from it as I'm sure every year it causes displaced soap episodes which inevitably get thrown out against EastEnders.


I think the ratings might have put them off on Goodnight Sweetheart. IIRC it didn't even crack 4m in overnights. And that was a special episode. It didn't bode well for a full series.

The highest rater (AYBS) of the sitcom season isn't going to series so I'm not surprised about GS. I liked it though.


I think declaring Emmerdale the 'second soap' (if you meant the position is secure) is a little premature. We've been here before with the show ahead of EE off the back of a big storyline only for EE to pull ahead again.

It depends what they're up against. EE should have an easier time of it without Downton Abbey in the schedules but saying that the Christmas Day ratings of the last few years have been all round disappointing.

Holby City is more of a prime target than it ever has been given that the show being put out to tender could create some instability behind the scenes - I've heard talk of writers being pulled off the show to work on the BBC Studios bid.

A MM repeat will have minimal impact. What ITV need to do is move the double Emmerdale evening from Thursdays to Tuesdays - and watch Holby flounder …

Or get moved to Thursday.

So has PoB Awards topped 4m and has it topped Holby? Maybe even brought OLies to below 5m. I'll go for 4.2m, 4.2m and 4.9m.

Arctic Live: 2.59m (12.0%)

The Choir: Gareth's Best in Britain: 1.89m (9.1%)

The #PrideofBritainAwards on ITV won more than half its slot and averaged 4.1m/19.4% @itvstudios http://www.overnights.tv

BBC1

EastEnders: 5.95m (30.3%)
Holby City: 4.10m (19.0%)
The One Show: 3.90m (20.7%)

I do love these programmes, but this one had very little happening of note. Big Blue Live was more interesting.