Agree, just had that discussion on the Christmas Radio Times thread,

Yup, no idea where the soaps are going. Possibly New Year's Day? Stephen Mulhern's soap quiz will probably be there too alongside Ninja Warrior (it's in the Christmas trailer so must be somewhere).

Thanks for confirming. I'm back home now so have managed to refresh Digiguide. Normally there have been a few changes to BBC1 by this point but there hasn't this year, which maybe suggests it won't change much at all.

It's a great idea, though. Sky have had a Harry Potter pop-up channel a couple of times, so having them stripped over Christmas will give them to everyone over a short time frames.

Also, Ofcom changing the rules only allowing one ad break per half hour, makes films slightly more watchable on commercial TV.

The only thing ITV could do with the soaps is move Emmerdale to 6.30 on Wed, Thurs and Fri unless they are a few eps short this year so have pulled 3 eps

Or its stale-mate. BBC are waiting to see if ITV change and vice versa. Did we not have this situation on the first Christmas DA was on?

Do we know who the BBC have got to play on New years eve at Big ben?

This is ITV's NYD schedule earlier this year

ITV (inc +1)
19:00 - Emmerdale: 6.25m (26.2%)
19:30 - Coronation Street: 6.95m (27.6%)
20:00 - Gino's Italian Escape - Islands in the Sun: 2.55m (10.3%)
20:30 - Coronation Street: 6.54m (26.7%)
21:00 - The Big Quiz: Coronation Street v Emmerdale: 3.20m (12.7%)
22:00 - ITV News: 2.82m (11.9%)


Pretty mind numbing line-up. Surely next year will be better?

When were the Harry Potter films last on ITV? I know they over did them a couple of years ago, but it's been a while now?

Lazy scheduling but also interesting and likely to pick up more viewers than an entertainment special, also no different to the likes of Channel 5 who often resort to back to back films all day at times like this.

Regarding the soaps, Emmerdale comes out of this I'm a Celeb period with a gain of 1 episode, Corrie has gained 2 episodes overall.

I wonder if they are really going to run EastEnders 2125-2225, which is a very late slot.

Another HUGE Strictly rating. Is that the tape-checked rating lewie?

PEII rises by 0.5m.


IAC continues to do very well. XF back on the slide again.

Maybe that 6.1m rating is wrong looking below?


I guess this is the right rating


Amazing rating for Strictly's Blackpool special. That must be the first time it's topped 12m mid run in a long time. Anyone know when an episode consolidated this high, excluding finals?

A very nice set of official ratings for IAC. Good stuff.


Ray - can you answer this? Has the Broadcast app stopped updating?!

That must be the first time in a long time that EastEnders has come above Emmerdale, even if it is by a whisker.

I think ITV lost the rights to Potter in 2015,

H of De Vil, having seen the ITV Christmas Day schedule, it looks like you have finally got your wish.

Back in October 2015 you said They should have Despicable Me 2 which could do well on Xmas Day, although whatever film they show BBC1 always beat them even if the film is weaker

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...97171&page=365

The ratings gods have finally listened

I doubt it, it's been pretty much as crap for the last five or so years, just like Christmas Day and in fact the whole holiday period.

ITV used to be the go to channel over Christmas at this house, these days, it's the one to avoid, sadly.

A Christmas special of BOAF and Mr and Mrs is not a festive lineup.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbi...ling-shake-up/

But Emmerdale will be ahead tape checked, sadly we don't get those figures.

Has it really been cancelled? More just not scheduled.

Yes if its sticks I can see this doing very well in that morning slot.

Not a shakeup. It happens. Every. Single. Year.

However, "Coronation Street cancelled tonight to allow for Harry Potter marathon" looks like the headline in a few weeks time.

Will this be the latest Eastenders has ever been on to on bbc 1 across the UK if they go with 2125-2225. I think it has aired later on bbc scotland in the past but not uk wide.

You mean like this ITV programmes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhqAYwzKSF0

and this for movies on ITV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8BQphV5Kl4

I'm getting all nostalgic now

Great to see Planet Earth II rising again this weekend - and episode 2 still consolidated brilliantly over 11m.

My other takeaway from the weekend is how well McIntyre held up. I thought it could fall back with a bit of a bump - but it held pretty strong and a peak towards the end of the slot suggests he is carrying his own audience. That's very good news for the BBC - finally a new, returnable, shiny floor show doing very solid numbers.


Well I imagine that won't go down too well in some corners - though in ratings terms it won't be too bad.

I feel like it's got the fingerprints of Kevin Lygo all over it. From his interview at Edinburgh and a couple of the big decisions he's taken, he strikes me as rather more ruthless than previous ITV management. On non-priority days like those leading up to New Year, he's not about to spend more than he has to on inevitably lowly rated fare, just to keep up some pretence. More likely likely to bite the bullet, and turn out this line up to get solid audience share for minimum outlay. Going to ruffle some feathers for sure, but it does at least seem like a concerted plan for the channel and I think might do some good to the numbers - which is what he's all about.

Or it suggests Digiguide can't be bothered. It's been all over the place for months.

I know the quality of TV stories in the papers have set a very low bar recently, but that one takes the biscuit as the stupidest story ever. Words fail me, they really do.

The latest screening aired at 2330 on New Year's Eve in the 1980s.

Ideally they would only run for two blocks of, ooh let's say 13 weeks. But since that ain't happening, surely the best slot is 9pm after Holby? You've then got some nice crossover storyline potential.

I don't recall a jam packed ITV Christmas schedule across the whole festive period 6 years ago, or indeed 16 years ago. You'd get festive editions of Light ent which in those days would have been Blind Date or Barrymore, but that's no different to a festive Mr and Mrs or Through the Keyhole.

As Steve will no doubt point out, they ran back to back films way back in, was it 1992, and in those days a programme about paint drying would get 20m on ITV. It's always been about the BBC at Christmas, even in the days when it wasn't all about the BBC during the rest of the year.