Dancc, have you seen the Channel 5 promo with all their upcoming shows for this year. Apart from one or two like Cruising with Jane McDonald and Celebrity Carry On Barging, the rest looks really promising.

Not great. But it's C4, what can you expect? It more than deserves to be on one of the big 2 but they don't do American series anymore so it's obscurity all the way.

I have, yes. It's a well put together promo (here if anyone hasn't seen it). 1 minute of video that comprehensively proves that C5's content isn't all cheap benefits tat as per popular rumour. Quite a bit there that could rate I think, as well as one or two pieces that sound a bit more experimental.

We can't ignore this big lack of drama in the week though. I know it's getting harder and I know they've had their fingers burnt a number of times with shows like Once Upon a Time and Person of Interest, but there really should be one slot in the week for US imports all year round, even if it's at 10pm. Just adds some much needed variety to the schedule.

Even as recently as a few years ago they had a fair bit of success on Tuesday nights in January with Body of Proof, a show that didn't even rate that well in the States and was lucky to get three seasons. Things have got harder since then, but that doesn't mean you stop trying.

It's all well and good concentrating on factual and doing a better job of that than ever but without good drama around, even imported, they are always going to lack identity and not stand out enough. In particular docs fronted by talent that also work for other channels like Tony Robinson don't tend to be channel defining. People may not even associate the programme with the correct channel after the event, and even putting viewer ignorance aside, if it's a programme that could have easily been made for C4 in the first place and felt perfectly at home there then it rather confirms the idea that C5 still has an identity crisis that's no closer to being resolved.

A Year In The Dales looks like it could do well.

Dancc do you now when Gotham will turn up? Thanks

It's not great but it's still an increase of 21% on last year - so not terrible either.

Though less than might have been expected given the generally much higher profile of ITV compared to C4.

It'll be interesting to see how it does on ITV4 - on the face of it, one might expect it to be far lower than C4. But if ITV doesn't give a big uplift , maybe ITV4 won't lead to a big fall?

But with over half of the content on ITV4 it does beg the question - from racing's point of view - as to whether total viewing across the whole year - ie total viewing minutes - may actually fall?

If the fall for ITV4 (vs C4) is as great as the rise for ITV (vs C4) then total viewing will fall (with more content on ITV4 than ITV). I doubt that's what the racing industry would have been expecting. However that may well not happen - it's very early days - we need to wait for ITV4 figures and indeed for more figures on both channels across a decent period of time.

Also will it all make financial sense for ITV?

They'll be getting good sponsorship income but they're paying £7.5m per year for rights and the production costs will be substantial with approx 100 days of live broadcasts with quite a large team, broadcasting quite a wide variety of content - not in a studio, lots of time to fill etc. The demographics may be better than average though not necessarily as good as most sport - as it might well skew older.

And will it be more profitable than what it's replacing? Impossible for us to make any assessment but I wouldn't be particularly confident that it would be.

Wrestling is cheap to make. It's really cheap to do a few months of television, all you need is a soundstage and a bit of money for key talent. It's not like itv was going full Ted Turner and was going in to the wrasslin' business.

Personally i think it will be the lowest, I hope not because all series deserves a chance obviously and shouldn't be judged based on casting alone.

I think that having a mix up of this should have bene left out until the very last series or at least for a summer CBB. The previous 3 January series have been big hits, it's a shame that I have a feeling that the complete opposite will happen.

I've always said it, there should not be two CBBs a year. Look at how well IAC does, perhaps because it's on for 3 weeks out of the year instead ~18 weeks a year.

It's a shame. And quite ironic. It's huge in the US. Love the show.

I'll be surprised if the Halcyon can keep within 1.5m of SW - I imagine itv would be very pleased if it does.

I actually watched it tonight - the joys of this forum. I liked it and my wife, who is the expert when it comes to these sorts of dramas, thought it was very enjoyable. She's also chuffed that I'm watching it with her. What with me watching The Crown too [both made by the same company] I'm storing up good capital with which to spend on GoT.

When comparing the two shows the obvious similarity was that Alex Jennings is in both (Lord Hamilton and Edward VIII). He's also in Victoria so he's doing well from this stuff.

Maybe the Halcyon doesn't drip the quality of the Crown but it's a lighter, soapier programme. It's the sort of drama that you can see exporting very well and doing very nicely on BBC America or PBS Masterpiece.

I am somewhat worried that I'm sharing the same opinion as:

https://theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...-downton-abbey

https://dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/ar...S-gripped.html

New Year's Day then not particularly exciting either on the ratings front. Sherlock certainly performed very well, although slightly down on the previous New Year episode. Mrs Brown is doing strong numbers for a comedy, and they are still gradually toning down the swearing each year, I think there were only one or two f words in the Christmas Day episode but a fair few on the New Year episode. Still Open All Hours has fallen a long way from its cosy sunday evening slot, it should recover once it gets back to Countryfile and Antiques Roadshow. Very disappointing for Eastenders, it really ought to have been well above 7million last night, even accounting for timeshifting and Iplayer it will still be well down on the final total rating for any other New Year's Day episode. I have a sneaking suspicion Monday's rating could be the big one of the festive season, with it being a Monday night, normal time slots for all the soaps and first pre work-day night of the year after the holiday. In fact all the soaps might be surprisingly high.


Coronation Street did well to bag top soap status but nothing else rating well at all for ITV yesterday.


Fantastic rating for Strong Man. I don't think any of the other episodes this run have gone above 1million so for it to leap up to 1.85m for the final is incredible. I've always been a Strong Man fan so I hope that rating gives Channel 5 the confidence to continue with it after most of the ratings for it were down quite a bit this year.


Still Open All Hours totally killed the ratings momentum they could have had going from EE to Sherlock, potentially a big headline peak could have been up for grabs during a direct transition from EE to Sherlock. That's not a promising breakdown for Sherlock, dropping throughout the program every 15 minutes.

Not a fan of the new BBC1 idents. How many times do we need to see that flipping Avonmouth exercise class? At least have some variety. They should have kept the football ident for MOD and the Eastenders ident they had was quite good too.

Agreed.

It's scraping the barrel, but entertaining nonetheless.

Very true. Here's an OT link.

http://www.lg.com/uk/tvs/lg-55UH850V

When the overnights come out is someone able to give an average figure for the Darts last night (Sky Sports 1 + Sky Sports 3)?

Overnights.tv ‏@overnightstv 17s17 seconds ago
Silent Witness returned for its 20th season on BBC1 at 9pm, watched by slot-winning 5.7m/24.5% @EmiliaFox http://www.overnights.tv

Overnights.tv ‏@overnightstv 1m1 minute ago
ITV launched new period drama #TheHalcyon at 9pm, where it made a decent start with 4.7m/19.9% @LeftBankPics http://www.overnights.tv

That's a very decent start for The Halcyon, Silent Witness will be higher tonight. Hopefully it's a sign that two dramas can perform well against each other, like Poldark and Victoria.

EastEnders: 7.66m (32.4%)

DAMN!

ITV excluding HD / excluding +1:
ED: 5.50m; CS (19:32): 5.85m; CS (20:30): 5.62m

Now what was I saying yesterday about it shooting up after the bad rating yesterday...

Looks like the two dramas dented each other a bit. Silent Witness got a great rating but was nearly a million below last year's launch, whilst The Halcyon would most likely have broken 5m without it there. I expect big timeshifts for both.

Silent Witness still did very well and whilst that's a decent start for The Halcyon it doesn't leave it all that much room to fall.

Also fantastic for EastEnders, where did that come from?

Wow at that Eastenders increase!

Finally some ratings cheer for EE.

Although I'm even more baffled now that these casuals missed the main event but tuned in to the aftermath.

It looks like all of the soaps had a good night.

Very impressive rating, especially after Sunday's disaster. That's higher than either Corrie or Emmerdale have got for ages iirc.

Thanks lewi

Its an ok start for The Halycon. Its not got much room to fall at all. And for an expensive drama, I can't help feeling it should have in the mid 5 range. The drop off in audiece will also be mitigated for SW by tonights easy slot win.

BBC2 (Top 3: 7pm-11.45pm):
University Challenge: 3.14m (13.3%)
An Island Parish: Anguilla: 2.08m (8.8%)
Britain's Ancient Capital: Secrets of Orkney: 2.05m (8.8%)

That is excellent. Imo though it was a poor episode and considering the show is supposed to be in a new, character driven era, they really failed to pack an emotional punch with the direct aftermath of the first big moment of the new producer's era. Can't see it hanging onto those extra viewers for long personally. Soz to come out of lurksville with such a dampener.