Surprised at that fairly low rating for the football, I thought it would be closer to an England tournament rating.

I suppose England/Scotland isn't a big draw anymore.

I said this on another thread. Still capable of being good when there is a big story ongoing, but to me Hislop and Merton sometimes look like they are sleepwalking through the show-they are growing old with it, and whilst we are all doing that, it just adds to the feeling imo that they are being wheeled out again and again rather than adding the vibrancy which for me, characterised the earlier years.

I'd say Michael McIntyre's Big Show is more likely to get 5m away from The X Factor.

6m is very low but I notice this is includea the pre and post-game show. I'd assume the match itself clears 7m and peaked at over 8m. It was a Friday and I know people who were planning to watch it in a bar.

The rating would have been a bit higher on Tuesday. I expect England v Spain will score a similar number.

Both will rate well because XF can simply be taped and watched at 9pm without the adverts. Though I shan't be skipping the ads tonight as all of the big Xmas adverts will be on XF this weekend.

McIntyre is a good show to tape and watch later because that way you just fast forward the acts you aren't interested in.

England v Spain is a friendly so will score lower, audiences for football generally are down

http://awfulannouncing.com/2016/prem...n-england.html

So you expected EE to be at its usual level on a Friday up against live football ?

It does seem pretty low but I think it reflects the lack of interest now in the national team.
Tournaments aside, I don't see it improving.

England are in transition and there is nothing standout about them. If you add that to successful but dull qualifying processes and then early exits when it matters, its not much of a product. Still a decent bedrock of tv support though, but imo this is the lowest interest I have ever had in the England football team, its strange in a way-didn't 11 million watch England fail to qualify not all that long ago?

The problem is its just gone samey and dull.

It's a Tuesday so has weak competition and is less of a pub night. And Spain are more appealing than Scotland or even England these days.
Maybe 5m is gettable. It'd do more on BBC.

Am I right in thinking there are no major sporting events next year (so no World Cups or Olympics)?

World Athletics Championships held in London. August.

That's not a big schedule disrupter though, is it?

It's just over a week.

Thanks. So next year will be quite a stable year in terms of schedules on TV then!

Live football on ITV gets a much higher than regular HD figure, so around 7m?

I see News at When returns next week:

Monday 10.00
Tuesday 10.15
Wednesday 10.30
Thursday 10.00
Friday 10.30

So obviously ITV aren't too bothered about moving it around

You're like a whack-a-mole game, popping up whenever something potentially negative can be said about ITV, News at Ten or Good Morning Britain

This has been the case for last 10 years of Celebrity.

I'm flattered you follow my posts so closely, you should get out more

Thanks, shall we get out more together? I'm sure I was the only one who made this observation!

Women's Euro Football and Women's Rugby World Cup.

I think ITV should be shut down for this. I mean how dare they move ITV News for the 2nd biggest show on TV.

I think the vast majority of the audience have no problem finding and watching quality drama on ITV, it has a long and distinguished reputation in the genre. It's the channel of Broadchurch, Cracker and Prime Suspect, and its drama remains its great strength.

Of course, Chris Chibnall said that when they were pitching Broadchurch initially they thought they might try Sky Atlantic because they thought it would be the kind of bold thing they were after. It ended up on primetime ITV, so if you're tossing up between those two I'm not sure what Sky Atlantic can actually offer. I guess it can benefit in terms of scale, but not all dramas have to be big budget mammoth affairs, do they? British audiences are still happy to watch small scale affairs as well. I guess they may also have a benefit in being able to do very long runs, which ITV probably wouldn't, but they don't seem massively interested in doing that.

Incidentally I see in Broadcast this week that Polly Hill is suggesting ITV are looking for story-of-the-week dramas which can run for several weeks of the year every year, in the style of CSI which would be good, I think.

I do think the procedural dramas does get looked down upon compared to the serialised drama but as we have seen with things like Silent Witness or Death in Paradise that these dramas haven't lost popularity