We watch a lot of sport delayed, but same day. Yesterday's Andy Murray semi and today's golf being recent examples.

Don't think it is. Last year Djokovic beat Federer 6-3, 6-4. Must be a best of three.
Last edited by iaindb : 20-11-2016 at 17:02

The film was a flop, nor helped by its views on religion. That should not affect the TV rating here.

One of those awkward years when the issue doesn't include New Year

Fair enough, but what are you suggesting? You were bemoaning that Pointless is on repeats (even though it wasn't) and "they rate just the same", as if that was a bad thing. But if the audience wants to watch them, what's the problem? If they didn't want to watch repeats, they wouldn't. So it sounds like you're blaming the audience for sitting through repeats.


"Non-BBC presenters"? How have we had years and years of freelancers on all channels and still people are suggesting there's such a thing as a BBC or ITV presenter. As mentioned, of the six main presenters, five of them have regularly hosted BBC programmes in the past year, and the other one has regularly appeared on the BBC. Most presenters happily work across all channels. What's the issue? The audience don't care.



Indeed, and what gets me is that I doubt anyone moaning about the quality of the programme would donate a single penny more if it was any more to their liking. The rating might be a bit lower than in previous years but how many other nights does BBC1 get 6.30 million over two and a half hours, opposite the soaps and I'm A Celebrity? Amazing it even gets that. And it's a million miles ahead of the nineties when it was beaten by ITV every year and had virtually no publicity. In 1992 the total raised actually went down five million pounds from the previous year.


There was no way Strictly was going to start late last night, of all the programmes on BBC1 this week, that was the one that had to absolutely start on time. As soon as the tennis overran I knew CiN was going to be dropped. Of course it was shifted over to BBC2 last year to make way for an extended news, the day after the Paris attacks, and an ancient episode of Pointless.


Hmm, I wonder about this too, sometimes it doesn't always come across very well if the space is too big. It reminds me a bit of Jack Dee's Saturday Night from 1995, which was a similar show and was a blatant attempt by ITV to attract a younger audience on a Saturday night. It was a huge flop, partly because it was an uncomfortable mix of new and old, but also because it was filmed in a theatre and it had all the atmosphere of a morgue.


And of course I have a Radio Times from 2000 where Claudia Rosencrantz, ITV's Head of Entertainment, says they wouldn't have commissioned Friends Like These because it was a young-skewing show that only appealed to a certain demographic and they wanted shows that did volume across all demos, like Blind Date.

I'm glad you mentioned that quote again because it is very pertinent to the big shows on Saturday night. Yes ITV wants the young demos but if you don't bring in any other demos you get a low rating night. X Factor wasn't just commissioned to get young viewers but lots of viewers like Pop Idol and for awhile it did. Strictly skews old but because overall ratings are high it gets a few from several demos. Reminds me of a reality show that ITV made to find comedians, commissioned to get younger viewers and it went opposite New Tricks. New Tricks had such a big audience that it outrated ITV's comedian show in the youth demo.

The majority of sport I watch is recorded due to working shift work.

Tonight we are off to a wedding reception so I'll be recording the tennis.

There I am saying "I can't help feeling......" only for Michael to nab a 6.2m overnight, which as someone else observed earlier (sorry, can't remember who) is probably at the higher end of our expectation and a very good figure for a programme of this nature. (Most of the LE shows that rate higher than that, Strictly, BGT, IAC, Strictly have a competitive element. SNT is the only LE show rating higher that isn't a competition)

Not sure what point you're trying to make here with a show from what in television terms is ancient history. As "Bang On The Money", for example, is pretty much a 2016 version of "Friends Like These" what might not have been commissioned then is certainly being commissioned now.

Do we have any indication of how I'm A Celeb and PEII are doing from last Sunday?

Well obviously if you're not there ... ! I was talking about the choice people make when they're actually sat in front of the box with two (or more) choices to have on screen. Generally speaking if live sport is one of them people will tend to go for it because of the pain of trying to arrange life so as to avoid the result otherwise and because there's still a certain joy in knowing that all across the world people are seeing what you're seeing at the exact moment it happens.

Commissioning those types of programmes might be the problem. Commissioned in a style that only appeals to certain demos rather than cross generational appeal. But then again we don't know that some of these programmes weren't commissioned for a wide audience. They probably were and presentation is letting them down.

More likely the adults watch Strictly and the kids watch X Factor in those households. I doubt they watch much together.

Back in 2000 ITV was the most watched channel with a 29.3% share, ahead of BBC1's 27.1%. Broad appeal worked.

Times have changed, Freeview launched, pay increased and now the OTTs are making inroads. Younger people have drifted away from mainstream commercial TV and BBC1 skews older year by year.

Commercial broadcasters are chasing demos. Not all young. Netflix skews young and they're now spending millions to get older subscribers with The Crown.

MM beats the X Factor, well deserved. How can Honey G get a standing ovation. It never had much credibility but in the past SC would have criticised the joke acts but now is giving her a standing ovation. This years X is actually worse than last year and It was BAD last year.

And Simon would have received stick from some for being a grump who needs to lighten up and stop looking for the same type of pretty pop act.

They do give too many standing Os though. In the 2008 Final they didn't give some of the performances a standingO. Clearly there's been an attempt to be nicer and warmer.

It's a disgrace, I'm never watching it again...

What is so Christmassy about Michael McIntyre's Big Show? Does anybody understand what this is all about? Anybody? No? Not just me then.

BBC1 putting an entertainment show on Saturday nights! What madness is this?

There will be a Christmassy Big Show, but in general, Christmassy, "Big Show" isn't! Only when it's deliberately Christmassy can it be called Christmassy!

Well it's a cosy variety show in a theatre, the sort of thing you'd enjoy snuggled up at Christmas with champagne and mince pies. But maybe that's just me.

And why not schedule cooperatively? ITV basically wave the white flag against SCD right now, so the BBC could return the favour in the 8pm hour.

Well he did the same thing last year with Reggie N Bollie, who in my opinion were far worse. By your standards you can only stretch to saying it's as bad as last year. Which still wouldn't be true IMO.

He's clearly changed his style of judging, get over it. Should the judges' comments have to reflect exactly what you're thinking for the show to be entertaining?

You can't really expect the BBC to put something weak at 8pm, just to help TXF. In any case, they put the dull Lottery shows in the 8pm slot and even they get 4m.

Its ITV's own fault for putting the piss poor MTP at 7pm and letting it play out despite the ansolutely awful ratings.

If ITV want to up their ratings, then they need to start putting a bit of effort in, and put some stronger shows against TXF. Ninja Warrior UK would be doing so much better than MTP.

Also I've noticed on ITV Press Centre, they've scheduled a one-off return of Go For It on Saturday 10th at 7pm. I mean forgoodness sake. They are just making their schedules weak.

BIB - that's ITV's fault.

And I'm pretty sure they don't do it on purpose. They don't commission shows that they expect to flop.

MTP is fine. It's not even targeting a young demo.
The same applies to GFI.

It's the same show as the Palladium show. I agree with those who say it's work better in a studio. Maybe someone at ITV should be asking why they never commissioned it.

If ITV are waving the white flag - shame on them. Someone needs to realise that SCD has quite a lot of 'soft' viewers. Ditto the soaps.

Murray's match finishes at 19:59. Clearly a fan of Planet Earth.