I might have a look at them to fill up the half hour between Blankety Blank and Birds of a Feather.

I hope Blankety Blank manages to hold an end up opposite Pointless at the very least but I do fear for it, as said. That could in turn have an impact on ITV's evening moving forward, with no junction with BBC One until 9pm.

Plus the curiosity factor. I'd hope it's higher than 3m anyway.

It's a pilot, it's going to have plenty of rough edges. The set needs improving.

We could see quite a good rating for Muppets Xmas Carol. C4 should have a good day.

Ratings thread game - predictions

Xmas Eve
1A
2B
3A
4B

Xmas Day
5B
6B
7A
8B
9A
10A

Boxing Day
11A
12A
13A
14A

3m is a surprisingly low guess for Blankety Blank

Pointless 4.4
Dad's Army 1.3
Blankety 3.2
Muppets 2.1
Andre Rieu 600k.

That's about 12m, to wit 60%+ share. If more than 20m were watching then stick 10% on.

Christ, Blankety Blank was weak.

Blankety Blank and Birds of a Feather. Is it BBC1 in 1989? No, Christmas Eve on ITV in 2016.

Bless them for trying but it felt so cheap.

Is it? I'm going under that!

If you want cheap wait for BBC One on New Year's Eve - two primetime repeats and an episode of Casualty!

Cheap? Blankety Blank was probabaly quite expensive and BOAF has been shot abroad. Might have felt cheap, but it certainly wasn't.

Well BOAF looked expensive but the script was so weak it ruined it all. Blankety Blank needed 15 minutes chopped out of it.

Given how well Saving Mr Banks did for BBC Two, I'm thinking The Lady in the Van will do better since it's a more recent film.

BOAF was pretty weak. After a great series 3, tonights special was very low on the laughs. And yet Still Open All Hours manages this every year and rates well.

I too think Muppets will do really well. 2m+. Its a fab film.

....and it bypassed Sky. But it wasn't as big as Mr Banks in the cinema or awards.

It did 41million, which is very good.

Reason it bypassed Sky is because it was a fully BBC Films production whereas Saving Mr Banks wasn't. I think from 2015 onwards any fully BBC Films productions premiere on FTA TV.

The Lady in the Van was more successful than Saving Mr Banks in the UK, it grossed £11-12m compared to Saving Mr Banks which did £5-6m but Saving Mr Banks made more money elsewhere the subject was broader than Lady in the Van which is a very British film. Both were profitable due to their budgets being low.


I'll be curious to see what BBC Films debut on television next year, I'd assume Absolutely Fabulous the Movie would be ready but I'm not sure if Fox funded that or BBC Films. Far from the Madding Crowd and Brooklyn were BBC Films production but they haven't had their FTA debut yet, David Brent Life on the Road I imagine will be BBC One rather than BBC Two

Birds Of A Feather peaked during its BBC run in terms of humour and lost its way towards the end. The ITV version has its moments. The popularity of Still Open All Hours baffles me. The best episode was the first one.

Blankety Blank will do well but it was padded out and not as good as I hoped.

I'm not going to watch the new series of Open All Hours, the last series was dire and I felt embarrassed watching it.

Re Birds, I watched the 1993 Christmas special on one of the Freeview channels the other night and it was brilliant. A real 'event' if you like with great dialogue. And that episode got well over 19m that Christmas. I saw the first 30 minutes of tonight's special and it was weak, which was a shame as there is a lot of mileage still to be had with those characters.

The last series of Birds was really good. I think they were told they had to do something really different with the Christmas Special when they didn't need to push the boat out quite so far. It was still an enjoyable enough hour for me though.

I loved the last series, was on top form. Yeah I do agree with you there. Mind, I wasn't watching it properly as was doing some last minute wrapping!

Really hope The Lady in the Van does well, it's a beautiful film.

It feels different in comparison too BOAF when its not funny. Its amusing. A bit like Last of the Summer Wine. That was not hilarious, but 'amusing'

The Sunday 7.30m slot between CF and AR doesn't hurt SOAH

THough I'd rather watch 6 episodes of SOAH being poor than BOAF. The former has Sir David Jason. On BOAF you have Linda Robson who is really weak at comedy now she's older.

I think I'd rather ITV left BOAF alone if this is what a fourth series would be like.

Well, yeah. If you don't mind 7 hours and 30 minutes of Still Open All Hours. On a Sunday.

I forgot how cheaply made Peter Kay's Comedy Shuffle is. Clips from The Paul O'grady show and DVD extras so far with no linkage between them.