As far as I can see, H said it's "not too bad" but that doesn't constitute as 'people'. Plus, I don't see anything wrong with saying that anyway.

I like it too, splitting the soaps is ugly to my eyes and ideally they wouldn't do it with Corrie as well, but I know it provides an important lead-in to the 9pm slot.

EastEnders was out of slot and there to be taken on. I'm not buying it's turned a corner after two higher than expected ratings - much more data is needed to conclude anything from that.

ITV should be doing an awful lot better than 3.3m against EastEnders nowadays, particularly with a documentary as safe sounding as money saving / weight loss at this time of year.

Great start for Death in Paradise, up on last year if I'm not mistaken. I thought Silent Witness would be the higher of the two.

Yes EE figure is good but that ED rating is excellent. Great share and for a run of the mill episode a fantastic rating. I just think it gets overlooked in the thread sometimes and you wouldn't think that it's been out rating EE regularly since October.

Maybe they should consider putting them on at 8. For instance:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 8pm have Corrie giving a lead-in to the 9pm shows.
Tuesday, Thursday at 8pm have Emmerdale. The other Emmerdale would be on at 7pm one day, probably Monday.

This frees up the 7pm hour for new programming and helps the 9pm shows. Shows like This Time Next Year and Little Big Shots probably would go on at 9. The 7 slot might be used for quizzes, lifestyle, factual, comedy, documentary and such like. They'd be facing EE.

Tonight on itv 10.40 fishing impossible followed by the wine show I bet they will breaking some ratings records for the wrong reasons

Awful scheduling

Monday and Friday's Corrie's would clash with EastEnders which wouldn't go down well.

Emmerdale currently has 6 eps per week so you'd need another slot.

Personally, I don't like hour long soap episodes, I'd much prefer the soap block to be 7-8 for ITV each day (minus Saturday) and then leave the 8pm hour free. But again you've got the pesky EastEnders clashes to think about.

Why is it awful? No one watches ITV then, they're hardly going to schedule new programming.

How about

5pm Tipping Point
6pm the Chase
7pm news hour
8pm emmerdale/corrie (7pm Sunday, ideally get rid of 6th episodes)
Mon - Thurs 9pm 60/90 mins drama, occasional factual/entertainment
Friday a Movie
Mon - Thurs 10/10.30 chat show, followed short news bulletin

Would itv then only have to provide the news at 7pm as that is considered primetime

Because they are early evening magazine shows or itv4 shows I know they arent going to show new stuff at that time they hardly do these day not even the bbc do with the exception of graham norton, but i just thought a Movie would be a lot better than two minority magazine shows at that time ?

Both repeats...

ITV won't make any money after 10:40, so why would they put new programs on?

No the Monday 7pm Emmerdale would be one hour long - that's a lot of soap on a Monday but it is already.
I did that on the idea of EE being on 7:30 on whatever days it's on now.

ITV wouldn't risk moving Emmerdale from 7pm, it's a slot winner and you'd risk putting on shows that would rate less well. Putting all the soaps at 8pm is also unlikely and also would put a lot of shows like Midsomer, awards shows, factual etc out of slots and things like Midsomer and award shows aren't suitable or won't air at 7pm and I think light entertainment LBS are out of place at 9pm.

News at 7pm is also unlikely, 6pm IMO is the perfect junction for the news for both ITV and BBC.

It's a nice idea but 7pm isn't a slot that ITV and BBC One use for big programming anymore hence why we have The One Show and Emmerdale at 7pm and 7.30pm is Corrie and Eastenders mostly with the odd factual. 8pm and 9pm is where you get the most viewers and giving up that slot for soaps all week is a disaster waiting to happen.

Spies kind of flopped for me there, under 1m with +1? It was promoted quite heavily.

I wonder what ITV will air between The NTA and The Brits, it's three weeks and I don't see any three part drama so I am assume it's factual. I'm surprised they didn't put Tina and Bobby there rather than next Friday.

Re: soaps I do advocate this schedule more than ever nowadays

Emmerdale - 19:00 (Mon-Fri, 1h Wed)
EastEnders - 19:30 (Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri)
Coronation St - 20:00 (Mon/Wed/Fri, each 1h)

Clean and tidy, consistent start times, eliminates doubles and no clashes. Requires some movement on both sides but I think it's in mutual interest, and that sort of thing has happened before when the soaps have added episodes or changed slots.

EastEnders did much better at 8-9pm than it would have if BBC One had stuck to the original schedule of one episode from 7.30-8.00pm and another from 8.30-9.00pm.

The schedule changed when ITV came along with an hour-long Emmerdale from 7-8pm, so ITV well and truly dropped a bollock there, and have set themselves up for more servings of ratings turkey from Unforgotten.

Although, I'm not even sure why they've brought it back when they've scrapped better-rated 9pm dramas.

Yes the new shows at 7pm would rate less well but that's just a shuffle of times of when you've got lesser shows. They could end up with a net gain of viewers over the three hours.

Now I'd much rather they do it at the 7pm hour but they seem to want to feed the 9pm hour and not risk losing viewers to EE after the 7pm hour.

Well, I'd rather they went back to two or three episodes a week but that ain't happening (too).

Have ITV settled on a title for it yet? They've had a few goes.

Probably because Unforgotten is a critically accaimed drama, and it improves the image of ITV having a mixture of fluff dramas (Midsomer) and the acclaimed dramas (Broadchurch/Unforgotten).

As much as I loved Home Fires and Breif Encounters, both were likly more expensive than Unforgotten.

I wouldn't say 4.3m is a ratings turker against nearly 7m on BBC1. Especially last year when a big Sunday night drama bottomed out with only 3.3m.

I don't think Unforgotten will drop next week.

You've done the same with Corrie with three 1hour episodes on Monday/Wednesday/Friday and one night with two hours of soap (sighs). My issue with this is that Monday and Friday will feel like two hours of soap too, few are going to check out itv at 7:30, especially with EE on against it.

Once you put EE in there you can't escape the fact that soaps are going to feel ubiquitous before 9pm. Holby adds to it on Tuesdays.

Best TV in the world.

Monday and Friday are already 2 hours of soap though but EE airs in the middle of an hour of Corrie... all this does is merge the double Corries from 7.30/8.30 into one episode airing for an hour at 8 and shifts EE back 30 mins to 7.30 start.

Don't see why people wouldn't check out ITV at 7.30pm either, especially if they don't watch EastEnders. Perfect slot for Paul's Dogs, Countrywise, Tonight and the like. They're no less likely than they already are to watch ITV at 8pm on Mon/Fri. It simply removes the double episodes, which are jarring to viewers in most 'non-event' weeks.

Think we have to accept the fact soaps dominate 7-9pm on Monday and Friday (and currently Thursday, though I've proposed that changing to Wednesday). But the doubles are unnecessary and this is a good solution to stop them.

If the evening's content appeals to said viewer, wouldn't you expect the viewer to stay with said channel? It is all in the art of the scheduler. Build a schedule focused on quality and variety and you lock the viewers in.

I wonder if diversity targets played a part. There are not many, if any, ITV dramas with such a range of casting.

First time I've heard Unforgotten mentioned in the same breath as Broadchurch. I'd put Unforgotten in the same sort of bracket as that Kidnap/Ransom series with Trevor Eve, or something like Level from last autumn. A bit of harmless hokum.