Looks a decent line up to me. A couple of Olympians is a good choice, from my point of view only two I have never heard of and at least there are no reality "celebs" from obscure progs to make up the numbers.
Two of those ladies are hot as well

That doesn't matter, because they'll get to know them during the programme. We have this discussion every year. My mum is in her sixties and can get to know these people very quickly. When Danny Mac gets his shirt off it doesn't matter if she hasn't known him before. She'll know him now.

I actually think that Strictly line-up looks better than 2015's - there's a good variety there and there doesn't seem to be as much of a BBC-slant to the contestants as there was last year. Having the two Olympians there will be an added draw, I feel.

Which also applies to I'm a celebrity but I can guarantee the people bigging up the Strictly line up will be at the front of the queue to slag off the I'm a Celeb line up when that comes around.

Regardless of the ratings, do you think we will ever move into a new era of Saturday night TV? I'm sure previous eras such as the Noel's House Party era had burnt out by now. I think we all know how this autumn will pan out ratings wise. Exactly the same as the last one, and the one before that, and the one before that, same posts, same newspaper articles, just with slightly different numbers.

Ricky Norwood I'm guessing since you knew the EE star that Strictly's signed up. Which means you'd never heard of Sam Fox, Christopher Biggins or James Whale. Some going to not know who any of those are!

But yeah, tend to agree with you about Strictly. A load of fuss over nothing, a pretty standard lineup for them. Not all of them are massively known, but it doesn't matter. It's an argument that is used against shows people don't like, however everybody loves Strictly so it'll be glossed over anyway.

Jay Lee still think 500 Questions will be the surpise hit for ITV? I watched 5minutes and that was enough for me. Terrible. Tedious. Will be a bomb.

Sub 3m tonight, sub 2m for the rest of the week. Looks like a burn off.

Still higher ratings than the last season.

I couldn't understand why it wasn't called 50 Questions given that's the aim of the game.

Coren an odd choice and yet he almost pulled it off. Clearly an attempt at a new Millionaire but it did feel like a 5pm daily show punted into primetime...

Giles Coren "almost pulled it off"?! Are you joking?! He was the most terrible host of a game show I have ever seen.

He yelled at a player "You muppet!" when they got a question wrong, mocked a woman from Hong Kong after she mispronounced "Cutty Sark", said that there was a member of The Muppets called "Fuzzy Bear", and was patronising, petulant and waffling throughout the programme.

The only saving grace for Giles Coren was that the format of the show was more inexplicable, dire and boring than he was.

Care to reconsider that statement now that Greg Rutherford has been announced?

And maybe your problem with not knowing who people are is down to you not living in the UK and are therefore not u.p to date with the latest celebs?

I think the days of straight up quizzes playing well at 8/9pm are gone, 5pm seems to be the way forward. It seems gameshow a have to be more than just a straight quiz to work in primetime on the big 2 these days unfortunately. The lottery quizzes just about manage it on Saturdays but even they aren't what they used to be.

I thought Coren was OK. Quite amusing in parts, you know he's going to be abrasive when you book him. Odd choice for ITV though and I'm not sure the audience will like him.

It might have scraped together 3m last night but with episode 2 in the flopzone tonight and episode 3 against Bake Off it hasn't got much of a chance really and the format did feel like they'd just thrown everything at the wall and hoped it would stick. Watchable but I don't predict much for it.

Richard Osman ‏@richardosman 3m3 minutes ago
@BothersBar 500 Questions 2.2m 11% (fell from 2.5 to 2.1). Debatable 0.64, Eggheads 0.94. Big Fat Quiz 1m.
0 retweets 0 likes
Reply Retweet
Like

Big Crunch coming on Monday 5th September Soaplife (and TV Times) has both Cold Feet and Our Girl starting, almost as brutal as Poldark and Victoria against each other the day before

Radio Rimes has when things are likely to start

Tutahkhamun ITV October
Our Loved Boy BBC 1 October 1 part Drama about Damiola Taylor's death
Rillington Place BBC1 November
The Level ITV September 6 part Drama
National treasure C4 September 4 parts
Dark Angel ITV November
Close to the Enemy BBC2 November 6 part Stephen Poliakof Drama
The Missing BBC 1 October
The Fall BBC2 September
Narcos Nexflix 2nd Sept
The Crown Netflix 4 November
The Young Pope Sky Atlantic October
The Collection Amazon Prime 2 Sept
Westworld Sky Atlantic October

Ripper Street 2.9m - 14.1%

The next Millionaire they said !

Well, 500 Questions flopped a bit then, didn't it?

The Missing 2, The Fall - and a new Poliakof!

Yay - can't wait!

It's not 1998 anymore!

Pretty good for BBC2 in August. Not a monster hit but could be playing to some of the demographic ITV want for Cold Feet.

That's only down 900,000 on the previous series premiere which aired on BBC One and up 700,000 on the finale which faced England rugby on ITV.

Held up very well for the channel switch. Great rating!

Those were the points when it sparked into life.

BBC1
EastEnders: 5.94m (29.9%)
Eat Well for Less?: 4.09m (19.7%)
BBC News (10pm): 4.05m (24.6%)

BBC2
Ripper Street: 2.86m (14.1%)
University Challenge: 2.59m (13.0%)
Only Connect: 2.17m (10.5%)

BBC4
The Queen Mary: Greatest Ocean Liner: 0.93m (4.6%)
Life Story (Repeat): 0.36m (1.8%)
BBC Proms 2016: 0.21m (1.8%)

Channel 4 (exc. +1)
Naked Attraction: 0.87m (7.8%)
The Big Fat Quiz of Everything: 0.82m (4.4%)
Make My Body Better with Davina McCall: 0.76m (3.8%)

Channel 5 (exc. +1)
Celebrity Big Brother: 1.32m (6.5%)
Police Interceptors Unleashed (Repeat): 0.74m (3.7%)
Tattoo Disasters UK: 0.63m (4.2%)

E4 (exc. +1)
Hollyoaks: 0.50m (2.9%)
Made in Chelsea: South of France: 0.36m (1.8%)
Coach Trip: Road to Ibiza: 0.24m (1.3%)

500 Questions and Debatable were disasters in their timeslots.

Yeah right the SCD people are almost as viscous as the Corrie Episode thread people heh

Awful for 500 Questions. I thought it'd be that low against Bake Off on Wednesday but not last night!

Disaster. It did have the air of a burn off and it definitely is now! Nice easy start for Bake Off tomorrow.

Great rating for Ripper Street.


Agreed. As was Big Fat Quiz.