Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Bond, Wizarding World and Indiana Jones are likely the only franchises as well as the Disney live action fairytales that can justify being sold seperate from the main studio outputs. I think in the US, basic cable networks like FX, TNT, USA etc do buy on the title to title basis but they do get films that haven't been that successful thrown in as part of the deal.

Also, Justice League isn't animated, you might be confusing with The Lego Batman Movie,

Speaking of Lego, who has The Warner Bros output deal? I assume it's ITV and Channel 5 since a few titles have appeared on both channels. Channel 4 still has Paramount although they've taken ages to come to FTA as Paramount did a deal with Netflix which had an longer period to show them compared to the other studios.

When I said JL I was thinking of those Batman - Killing Joke types, the DCU Animated Original Movies. They're more for the Home Entertainment Sales market and so yes, they can effectively be ignored from the above list.

When we consider what movies will rate well here we should always factor in that British movies will probably do well (like Potter and Bond) and what flops in America can be big here (Bridget Jones).
It still tickles me that Fast and Furious 7 made more $ outside of NAmerica than The Force Awakens did.

Consolidated rating for E4's latest US import Timeless for episode 1: 1.32m (inc +1).

Fast cars are an easier sell to places like China than space operas like Star Wars.

Bridget Jones has always done better here than in the USA, the sequel was made for the OS audience and the American release was gravy. It was the same with Johnny English and the Mr Bean films.

The Jungle Book did superb business in the UK, it was hugely successful in the US but the UK did £46m, more than Finding Dory by £4m which had a summer release. The BFG was also hugely successful in the UK but I think that's due to the Roald Dahl factor.

hope so because I've always liked Grantchester and the 90 minute episode was a decent one imo.....agree it should have been on Boxing Day or in fact ANY day after XMAS day......tired of harry potter and all the other repeats!

When do these 'timeshift' figures get added on? and what exactly are they? Excuse my ignorance!!

It's when people record the programme and watch at a later date. The BARB website has columns for seven day consolidated and twenty-eight day consolidated ratings.

So tonight - Ethel & Ernest looks very sweet and high quality animation but it's not something anybody in this household. And we're certainly not interested in Harry bloody Potter. So Mum's catching up on recorded programmes. There's Trollied from 12th December and Mr & Mrs from December 18th, so if we were part of the BARB sampole audience that would be added to the 28 day consolidated data. After that we watched Mrs Brown's Boy from Christmas Day. That would be added to the seven day data.

Later at 10pm when I'm in bed I'll be watching Jonathan Creek. Even though it's recorded, because I'm watching before 2am, it would be counted in the overnight figures. If I was part of the BARB sample. Which I'm not.

Well Ethel & Ernest was superb. The best thing this Christmas. Just pips Marigold for me.

I hope it does well.

The BFG would be an excellent Christmas Eve film for ITV if they could get it for Christmas 2018

thanks very much for that. very informative!

I wouldn't say this was the new reality at all but schedulers really need to think again about how they are doing their job because there are issues when you have shows that are getting higher ratings for regular episodes rather than a Christmas Day special.

Last night's Eastenders was higher than Christmas Day as an example.

There's far too much on Christmas Day, it's too crowded and the shows are not inclusive enough. 90 minutes of Call The Midwife shouldn't be there for a start.

My mum liked it. It's either going to be a flop, or a Stick Man style hit that should probably have got a better slot than 28th December, such as Boxing Day.

I enjoyed it too, and yes Marigold was a good watch as usual.

Dahl always does well here, it's a shame it bombed in America but it was up against it in late July. I expect the blockbuster season to keep expanding out of the summer as studios opt for the 'legs' strategy.

I thought it was lovely, and it was certainly well scheduled to take advantage of the absence of Corrie tonight. I'm less clear as to why the Beeb deemed it sensible to run two 90 minute shows back to back - I certainly felt my interest and attention tapering off about halfway through JC, and I can imagine others finding it similarly hard going

We've seen the first two of these and they're enjoyable so far. I know it's nip and tuck whether NBC renew it or not, I hope they do.

There's a touch of the Flashpoint CB series about it and I'm intrigued to see where it goes. My wife is worried it's going to get like Lost and become head-hurting.

Harry Potter is as british as fish and chips

Love this new advert...

https://youtu.be/hfRud9__L-c

There no 'issues' at all. People are simply choosing to do other things than watch TV on the day because they no longer have to watch shows to schedule. Rather than trying to get the intimate details of some devious plan in a soap over the sound of Gran snoring or the kids breaking their new toys they know they can simply defer using recording or catch-up services to a time when there are fewer distractions. That is the new reality. The power lies not with the schedulers but with the viewers. There is nothing schedulers can do to make people watch TV on Christmas Day (or indeed any other) and it is utterly pointless and self-defeating to try.

The suffering Debbie Reynolds must have endured recently...

The suffering ends. RiP.

I checked out the BBC news online after reading this. She was an underrated legend.

I agree. The assumption is BBC will get The Force Awakens because of their Disney deal but Star Wars is such a big franchise I think it will be have it's own separate deal like you say. ITV have always had Star Wars, so chances are they'll premiere Episode VII.

BBC1 (Top 3: 7.30pm-11.25pm):
Jonathan Creek: 5.11m (24.4%)
Ethel & Ernest: 3.87m (18.6%)
Mrs Brown's Boys (R): 2.35m (18.6%)

ITV excluding HD / excluding +1:
ED: 4.82m; HP: 2.96m