It certainly isn't niche. It just highlights once again though how little value premiere film rights are for carrying a primetime schedule. For the BBC its arguably one prime slot in a year at 3.10 on Christmas Day and maybe a few other comparatively decent figures for the Indiana franchise and the odd box office giant like Avengers Assemble-big enough to make a noise, and the rare favourably quirky like Warhorse. The rest is(or becomes) largely holiday schedule filler and very little else. For ITV its bidding for Potter, Bond and Star Wars -basically anything that repeats well (irrespective of age), and once again if a blockbuster comes along with enough clout-presumably Jurassic World will be in this category.

The vast majority who want to see a film will have seen it by the time it comes to terrestrial, so its already trading on repeatability. Perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised to see such figures-in the Captain America case-Avengers Assemble didn't break 5 million on overnight iirc-CA was always going to be less than that. It cant help being a poor looking figure though, all the same.

Personally I don't think that would really work as there's no real progression in a general auditions show, for there to be much point in splitting it. They do it for the lives because you've got the performances in an earlier show and the results in a later one.

Coronation Street ratings wise is the number one soap? And it's really poor at the moment. Emmerdale is the second biggest soap and Eastenders is third. Emmerdale has been good of late, Eastenders has been dreadful.

The Sun's 2017 dramas to watch...

BBC 1
Doctor Foster (spring)
Taboo (7/1)

BBC 2
Line of Duty (spring)

ITV
Liar (autumn)
Fearless (summer)
Broadchurch (spring)

Sky Atlantic
GoT (summer)
Twin Peaks

Amazon
American Gods. (spring)

Line Of Duty moves to BBC1 next year and Doctor Foster was pencilled in for Autumn, just like series 1, the last I heard.

Does anyone else see The Real Marigold Hotel on its move to BBC1 filling in the Wednesday 8pm slot and becoming a big hit (6-7m viewers)?

As odd as it may seem, some viewers will never watch something on another channel, but when it moves to BBC1 its garunteed an automatic 1m+ boost.

Hit of the Year: Has to be Bake Off. We won't see those overnights for a very long time. A great series to end a great run on the BBC. It remains to be seen how well it'll do on Channel 4 but I don't think it'll be good.

Commendations to Strictly Come Dancing which had it's best year in ages.

Flop of the Year: Top Gear. Even though it was set up to fail, getting such small overnights towards the end of the series was a disaster all round. Think it'll have implications for BBC Worldwide as well. Very costly failure.

New hit of the year: Planet Earth II. David Attenborough drew in the numbers again and great scheduling from the BBC meant it was a massive success. Fantastic to see a nature series do so well. Will be seen around the world.

Jaw-dropping rating of the year: The Planet Earth II and Bake Off overnights. That Sunday when 3 shows were over 10 million.

Mystifying rating of the year: That 800 thousand people still watch On Benefits.

"So glad that flopped" of the year: X Factor, just because I think the programme is well past its best and what I did see of it stank of manipulation.

"Such a shame that flopped" of the year: The BBC1 Christmas Schedule. I thought it was fantastic and a lot of effort had obviously gone into commissioning the shows, with better scheduling it could have done better.

Channel of the Year: There's a couple I could choose but I'd go for BBC2, which has had a great year with new formats such as Real Marigold, Inside the Factory and Victorian Slum doing really well, the Quizzes holding up and a more adventurous feel to their programming. Hopefully with Patrick Holland in control of only this channel, they can grow even more next year. They've also done well over the Christmas period, providing a nice alternative to BBC1.

Special mention to Channel 5 for having more +1 million hits, especially Can't Pay, ITV2 for finding more mainstream hits such as Love Island and BBC1 for its very successful shows this year.

Worst channel of the year: Has to be Channel 4. Overexposure of key talent. Lots of series down on last year. Naked Attraction. The Bake-Off fiasco. It hasn't been a good year.

The Sun accurate as always!

Is Poldark confirmed for the autumn or have they rushed it for Spring?

I don't understand what you mean when you say progression.

It's like having two XF audition programmes but on the same night rather than Saturday and Sunday. You'd end the first one with Ant telling viewers they'll be more in an hour but now over to Matt and Kim for 'Win Some Money!'...

Or whatever. Why settle for a BGT lead-in when you can also have a BGT lead-out‽

I think it'll be 9pm rather than 8pm as Wednesdays at 8pm will be Masterchef.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ahSk2STtQ

This new drama trailer for ITV highlights: Broadchurch, Little Boy Blue, The Good Karma Hospital & Fearless.

The Good Karma Hospital could be another Sunday 8pm drama ITV could try out. It looks like it could tap into the Real Marigod viewers.

The Sun just called Line of Duty 'hit BBC2 drama' - to be fair they never said it was returning to BBC2, that's on me.

To be fair a few users have been saying that about the week's overnights as a whole. It hasn't just come up about EastEnders

EastEnders is hardly the only programme to have posted underwhelming overnight ratings this week.

And I don't think you can compare the four, five and six times a week year round soaps to X Factor. EastEnders hasn't lost 10m+ viewers since 2010.

I wouldn't say EastEnders has been "dreadful". It's been treading water for much of the autumn as Sean O'Connor repairs the show - to his credit, the characters have become a lot more sympathetic and rounded than they ever were under the previous executive producer. However, the emphasis on characterisatio and community has resulted in a clear lack of momentum in the run-up to Christmas. This week's episodes, climaxing in a pitch-perfect and powerful episode yesterday evening, have, conversely, been very strong. The issue now is that damage has been done in terms of audiences drifting away from the show over the last few months. It's going to be an uphill battle to get them back.

Tbh I would prefer Corrie to be that way. Fix the show by just working on the characters to create a more real- human side, then once the show is in good health, bring in the bigger storylines.

The problem is, you risk loosing viewers, as EE has done. I think the NYD ep will be over 6m and closer to 7m. The news on before it last year was 7.7m for the local News, so EE should have a healthy lead in.

Well it has if you compare to the Live episode in 2010 which got 16m+

But you are right, they are different, so you can't really compare properly. Its a bit like comparing IAC to SCD. One is over 3 weeks on every day, the other only on weekends.

I agree, the character development has been good. However, the bins storyline was pathetic, and led nowhere. What EE need to do is tell people the tension is picking up, and the bin storyline (and other crap storylines) is done.

What's strange about SOC is the lack of hints and teasers, there wasn't even a press conference when he joined.

No, that's wrong. EastEnders has lost a similar amount, perhaps much more, over a longer period of time. Decades, actually. It just isn't acceptable and shouldn't still be clogging up our airtimes, X Factor is only on a few hours a week for a few months of the year! Therefore its ratings decline is less of a problem and you know it.

Also, it'll probably have some strong language.

Series 1 on BBC2 went out on Tuesdays at 9pm.

Of course EastEnders has lost more viewers overall since its heyday but the key phrase there is 'over a longer period of time'.

In recent times the decline of the soaps has been much more gradual than that of X Factor.

It's still not a fair comparison. Plus EE can bring in the viewers on special occasions, something X Factor can't do.

You could also use the same arguments about Corrie, and just about everything on TV. Why doesn't the news still get 13 million viewers?

Do you think C5 had an inkling about the knighthood? If not, they must have been rubbing their hands in glee when they saw the news this morning. Must be worth a few extra viewers.

I imagine The Good Karma Hospital will be paired with The Durrells so it'll likely be a 9pm show

I'm unsure what drama will go on Sundays in March as January will be Endeavour for four weeks then February will be Vera. My guess would be either Little Boy Blue or Fearless.

I'm surprised no Prime Suspect unless they're saving it for Autumn 2017

My predictions for 2017:

LET IT SHINE - ratings flop. (BBC light entertainment programme - nuff said)

DANCE, DANCE, DANCE - ratings flop (the trailer looks awful and the format sounds like a dance version of Your Face Sounds Familiar)

THE VOICE UK - ratings flop. (now it loses the hype from BBC cross-media promotion, the programme will be found out for the tripey format it is.)

THE HALCYON - ratings flop (everyone keeps comparing it to Downton, but I'm just thinking The Grand which I don't remember being a particular big hit. And it only lasted 2 series so presumably it wasn't.)

TABOO - ratings flop. (top marks to BBC1 for doing something different on a Saturday night but it doesn't strike me as mass-audience television)


Happy new year.

Radio Times says "This Spring".