And they are appealing to a certain type of of audience. Young viewers.

But here you have pointed out formats you think are trash, and deliberatly not pointed to the high quality shows that are on par with BBC standards such as: Downton Abbey, Cilla, Loch Lomond A Year in the Wild (Ch5) and National Treasure - a Ch4 drama that trumps any drama on the BBC or ITV this year.

Othere channels show quaility programming. I can say that without feeling like I'm betraying ITV.

...and all I was saying is that the new dance show on ITV sounds 'very X Factor' to me and you know what I think of the X Factor.

As a viewer of BBC Strictly, you will know that the pros create original routines in the required genre of dance.

BBC Strictly is not sensationalist, one of the very reasons why it is so popular. It is popular because it is very British and very BBC.

The BBC gets it right. From The Royal Albert Hall Festival Of Remembrance to Countryfile. From The News to Strictly. From Drama to Comedy and everything else in between. Compare Ch5 to the BBC. They are polls apart. Ch5 obviously appeals to some. It does it's job. As a network, it doesn't appeal to me in the slightest.

Please stop saying 'BBC Strictly'. We all know it's on the BBC.

You argue Strictly isn't sensationalist, this simply isn't true. This series has featured all sorts of sensationalism, everything from Will Young falling out with Len to Craig Revell Horward storming out of the studios.

I don't understand why you wouldn't just try something. You might actually enjoy Dance, Dance, Dance if you watched it.

Why not? Some of the historical documentaries have been brilliant this year. You would have loved if it was on BBC One.

ITV have started trailing the network premiere of Captain Phillips. But no trailer for The Lion King, Sleeping Beauty or 101 Dalmations?

It's pretty easy for people to find The Lion King though isn't it? People will mostly look at Christmas Day on the TV guides (I reckon) so those movies don't need a huge amount of promotion.

Have BBC1/ITV always promoted their Christmas Day film(s)? Of course I see the BBC are promoting their films over the Christmas period.

Is this acceptable Aaron?

You are incorrect in what you say re: BBC Strictly. The Will stuff was completely played down and quickly forgotten. Regarding Craig, perhaps you can enlighten us?

As you know Aaron, I am no fan of ITV.

But the BBC are heavily trailing Frozen. Therefore ITV need to stand out and make some noise about their offereing otherwise viewers will just stay on BBC1.

The one bonus this year though, is that Harry Potter in the early afternoon should build up some momentom into The Queen on ITV, meaning The Lion KIng gets more of a chance.

Possibly but not necessarily. The tone must be right. I just don't like Cannel 5.

I think a trailer for The Lion King would have been good for the people who don't really bother with a TV guide, and won't be watching Frozen.

I think the BBC have always done a trailer for the big film.

Meaning? They've done this for many years now. Their promos are often genre specific e.g. comedy, docus, light entertainment, films etc. I wouldn't expect the BBC to go to town on the film promos mind.

...or choose to watch the BBC because they want to watch Frozen H!

There's only so much ITV can do for The Lion King. It's not as if it's a premiere, it was shown just a few months ago even, although as we know C4 got it all wrong and were extraordinarily wasteful with it.

But trailing it extensively would look odd. Captain Phillips on the other hand is a premiere, and airing in quite a prominent slot, so rightly gets priority.

Also from ITV's point-of-view, the main focus now is going to be trailing their January programming, not a film repeat at 3 in the afternoon on Christmas Day. The holiday period really doesn't matter to them all that much, hence the unappealing schedules most nights.

I don't think people will need to be told when The Lion King is on. If there are people out there who have had more airings of Let It Go than slices of turkey in December then they'll desperately seek out an alternative... or even switch the television off. I don't think plugging The Lion King will make much of a difference either way.

Sleeping Beauty is stuck in the middle of Boxing Day afternoon; it's not their star programme of the Christmas schedule. Saying that it may have a chance considering Brave isn't the biggest of films and it has a Prisoner of Azkaban lead out.

Maybe 101 Dalmatians could be promoted slightly more but, again, it isn't the focal point. What they should really do is air a Disney trailer and promote all these films at once - call it Disney Season and see how far they get with it.

A trailer for The Lion King appeared this afternoon

Agree completely. Captain Phillips has a prime slot on Boxing Day so is obviously going to be trailed. Particularly as its the sort of film that might actually appeal to a decent sized audience but possibly not pop out on the EPG, so definitely worth raising awareness. Whereas there's not a great deal they can do with The Lion King. It's not high priority, it's not a premiere and there are only so many trails they can run.

No idea why they'd even entertain the idea of running trailers for 101 Dalmations and Sleeping Beauty. Trailer space is scarce and two films that are over 50 years old in afternoon slots are not a priority. They're nice offerings but I don't see either really rating particularly well and I'm surprised they didn't swap 101 Dalmations with Philosopher's Stone which you'd think would be more of a draw.

I know they're running a Harry Potter trailer but they are showing 8 of them and 5 of those are across primetime, so a bit different.

Have they trailed Amazing Spider-Man 2 yet? The scheduling of that whole evening is the worst of any channel of the entire fortnight, I've no idea what they were thinking.

I had to laugh at this post, because, having just watched Six Wives with Lucy Worsley on BBC One (which I enjoyed) I couldn't help but feel it was very similar in quality to a documentary on C5 earlier in the year (which, obviously, rated much much worse than this one will).

Having watched both of course I would be in the unique position of being able to make that judgement.

Viewers who don't actually watch it tend to have these preconceived ideas about C5 and who it is for, most of which are wrong. Those who actually take the time to watch some of the programmes tend to change their opinion pretty quickly.

Your comparison to the BBC is utterly asburd of course, but you must surely know that.

I think channels have burned themselves through decision making in yesteryear and have a hard time changing perceptions. ITV had the hideous period in the mid 2000s when every light entertainment show had to have Celebrity tacked on to the start of it; Channel 4 is still perceived to be broadcaster which tries to shock now and again - and really push programmes focusing on sex into the bargin - whilst Channel 5 had trouble finding an identity at the start resulting in some poor commissioning and decision making. When I think back to early days I think of Naked Jungle with Keith Chegwin and I didn't even watch it; hearing about it was enough!

Exactly the 4 billion of state money also helps them.

You've nailed it, Ash. It isn't like SCD.

Channel 5 currently repeating Chas & Dave's Xmas Knees-Up from 1982. I'm waiting for Jim Davidson to come on to see if he uses (and C5 lets through) amy off-colour material.

I think the programme may be cut. It's a 55 minute slot. Bet the original was 60 minutes. They've certainly put the commercial breaks in different places cosback then there would be two breaks in a 60 minute programme and today there are three.


edit: Unless I blinked and missed him, Jim Davidson didn't make the final cut. His name was in the end credits though.

A nice quiet evening on here I see...

Are we really still doing my channel is better than your channel arguments? Really?

You are right. Once a network/Channel gets a bad rep, it is very difficult if not impossible for that rep to change.

Did it? Good. I think it all helps in getting viewers in the festive spirit and highlights the areas of the schedule are making an effort.