Excuse me while I cackle my head off at that disastrous and utterly deserved rating.

I don't agree with you that factual automatically equals dull.

But I can understand why broadcasters tend to reserve more expensive programming genres for after 8pm when more viewers are around.

And whilst quiz shows needn't be overly expensive, I'm not sure the demand for them is ever going to be that great at 7pm coming hot on the heels of shows like Pointless, The Chase and Eggheads.

The November 19th edition of Strictly is the Blackpool Ballroom one - not sure if that gets a little bump in audience figures or not

Have the BBC run out of studios? the new series of Watchdog is coming from a tent outside The One Show studio!

So PoB and Holby were level, but just one number out again - 4.1.
Breath is baited to see if OL was 5.0 or 4.8m.

It usually does yes. Blackpool week on Strictly is an event for them. Might help Michael McIntyre's Big Show if it follows on the night.

Pretty much. They sold TV Centre which is still being renovated so they can't go there. Plus when it's back up and running it will have gone from 8 studios to 3. A slow hand clap everyone!

It was under 3.90m.

Factual doesn't automatically mean dull. Dull factual usually means dull. And variety isn't always factual v factual, soap v soap or drama v drama. Why not different genres opposite each other?

When you get home from work in the evening you've missed the daytime quizzes so you're ready for evening viewing. It's like saying there's no point BBC2 having University Challenge and Only Connect on later in the evening when The Chase, Pointless and Eggheads have been on.

Hopefully Ed Balls will still be around!


There's a bit of a gap until BBC Two's Monday night quizzes start, to be fair. I just think if the market was there for quizzes at 7pm as well then somebody would be already doing it. But the reality is most days it's pretty much non stop quizzes on the big four from about 3pm all the way through to 6:30pm, and sometimes BBC Two plays another quiz out of Eggheads as well.

I think in terms of quiz shows it's more about finding the next 9pm friendly quiz. The next Millionaire. There's a gap for that. And it's ITV who seem most keen to find one, albeit not hitting the target as yet and presumably feeling a little bruised after 500 Questions bombed completely.

Has the figure for Ordinary Lies been released yet?

Not yet. It should be posted here (bottom of the page) at some point in the next hour or two.

That was surely at least partly because it got zero promotion unlike what the others did.

It was a very late addition (i think it replaced something else that never happened - perhaps the Miranda Hart Up Pompeii remake?) and was not filmed in time for the press publicity articles promoting the series or any of the TV ad promotions that ran for weeks.

A couple of seconds were added to the generic TV ad just a few days before transmission. But it must have caught some of the prospective audience unawares.

In any case the key surely was that it was the overwhelming choice of the viewers when asked which show should return in several media polls. It was exceptionally well received as is obvious even from the threads on here and in national papers - several of whom carried articles saying the audience wanted more before the BBC declined. Something they did not do with the other sitcoms.

It deserved a Christmas special to see how it fared with proper promotion after word of mouth over the popularity of its return. No need to have risked a full series. But that at least was surely worth chancing. It is the kind of show that would fit into Christmas easily. Indeed it had a Christmas special in 1995, I think, during the original run.

I still think someone will bring it back given that the writers and cast all want to make more and 4 million viewers is a sitcom audience some channel will find attractive.

RATINGS!!

Wednesday 8pm anyone?

Totally agree. I wish it had in fact got '0' viewers. This type of ITV2 sruff it absolute crap. Joey Essex is not funny anymore, its just a worn out joke that gone too far.

Thing is, this is his only claim to fame now. Being thick, ITV bosses lap it up. If he stops pretending to be thick, he might have to get a normal job

You can really tell its all an act now. Especially when he was on Celeb Juice last week.

Oh well that's a number out too! Oh am I mixing it up with The Missing as I had it at 5.2m in my headfordshire?

Maybe BBC also making a mistake of similar dramas on consecutive nights. Not seen them so hard to call.

Well, further proof if proof was needed that there's no need to say "Oh, Tuesdays are a long term thing, they need to be gradually built up because people aren't used to watching ITV on a Tuesday". They put something appealing there and it got an audience. It's that simple.


To be honest, I doubt last week's episode being abandoned halfway through did much for the long term health of this series.


If nobody else has got it yet... 3.01m.

I quite liked 500Q but Lygo burned it off as he never wanted it. The format needed tweaking to prevent some flaws or - here's a though - the gameshow could have just besn 30 minutes long. There's an idea. Not everything needs to ape Millionaire.

It also needed to be filmed in the UK. It had potential and certainly would have done well in the afternoon.

Comes back to my point about wanting the old 5:45 news back so shows like simple gameshows or travel shows or This Is Your Life could be on at 6:30. As cylon says - some bloody diversity in primetime.

All About the McKenzies: 122k (0.6%) inc. +1

Really like Real Marigold Hotel. Aunty has a winner here. The new Who Do You Think You Are?.

They've also got big studios in Salford, Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast. The days when they needed eight production studios at TVC are long gone.

Just like Mummy Diaries and the Player in Marbella show, the ratings are absolutely stinking for all these TOWIE turd shows.

I don't know why ITV continues to give them airtime. Outside of the show, nobody particularly likes or cares about them. No doubt we'll have another one foisted on us in this year's I'm A Celebrity.

Oh dear Thanks

Down almost a million on last week.

Must have shared a lot of viewers with Pride of Britain and should go back up to high 3's next week.

From ITV Media:

Tuesday Top 10: Main channels (inc. +1 where applicable)

1 BBC One - 07:30 PM EastEnders 5.951m 30%
2 ITV - 07:00 PM Emmerdale 5.854m 31% Probably around 6.1m (?) tape checked
3 BBC One - 06:30 PM Regional News and Weather 5.501m 30%
4 BBC One - 06:00 PM BBC News at Six 5.195m 30%
5 ITV - 08:00 PM The Pride of Britain Awards 4.122m 19%
6 BBC One - 08:00 PM Holby City 4.096m 19%
7 BBC One - 07:00 PM The One Show 3.903m 21%
8 BBC One - 10:00 PM BBC News at Ten 3.890m 25%
9 BBC One - 06:00 PM ITV Regional News 3.742m 21%
10 ITV - 05:00 PM The Chase 3.482m 25%

Tuesday Top 10: Other channels (inc. +1 where applicable)

1 E4 - 07:00 PM Hollyoaks 842k 4.5%
2 ITV3 - 08:00 PM Midsomer Murders 732k 3.5%
3 BT Sport 2 - 07:00 PM Manchester City v Barcelona 723k 3.5%
4 CBeebies - 04:45 PM Peter Rabbit 466k 4.3%
5 CBeebies - 05:35 PM Jamillah and Aladdin 460k 3.1%
6 CBeebies - 05:00 PM The Let's Go Club 457k 3.9%
7 E4 - 06:30 PM The Big Bang Theory 455k 2.5%
8 ITV2 - 07:30 PM You've Been Framed! Gold 432k 2.2%
9 Dave - 10:00 PM Taskmaster 432k 3.1%
10 E4 - 06:00 PM The Big Bang Theory 428k 2.4%

Not really because they had 8 studios at TVC as well as regional studios around the country. The truth is that movie premieres and the West End theatre district are in London so it makes sense to have studios here. I know we all want to say build up the regional quotas but it's easier to get stars when they're in London because most come to London for movie junkets and theatre anyway. It was short sightedness to close London studios when more production companies are actually looking for them. And I will tell you right now that I know of several production companies where the furthest north they'll go for a studio is Elstree or Pinewood.