My only few gripes with X Factor were the judges saying yes to almost everybody - it felt a bit like The Voice, where everybody is supposedly brilliant, Sharon was very quiet and Nicole was purposely trying to cry - I'm surprised Simon didn't poke her in the eye just for a few tears.

Looks like Bake Off will stay on the BBC

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-...ing-on-the-bbc

I don't think her new face has had the upgrade needed to support authentic crying. That's coming in Version 2.0.

Seriously, what on earth is wrong with celebs having work done when they don't need it? She has absolutely ruined her looks!

No I didn't. I said Ninja Warrior looks more like a hit and should do well. I don't ever remember saying Ninja Warrior would flop. I'm pretty sure I thoight JW and BGT was a good schedule.

If you can find me saying otherwise, then please do point it out.

Go For It won't rise. SCD is against it next week, it'll be around 2.2m

I thought that too! She looked quite bizarre last night, I've no idea what she was thinking! Taking advice from Mrs O perhaps, who's face didn't look so bad last night with the exception of her bizarre new teeth! I did enjoy the bit last night when Sharon and Louis were looking at old photos and she was working out which facelift matched the photo! Nicole has definitely ruined her looks though, no idea what she was thinking. The 4 of them do make for quite a bizarre looking panel. Louis is the only one who looks normal (he's only had his new hair)!

What are your thoughts on how tonight pans out across the big 2 Dancc? Quite a tough one to call I think. I predicted earlier but the comedies in particular are real wildcards.

Casualty got pretty much what I expected it would. It was never going to do better on a bank holiday up against a revitalised X Factor.

I think for once both sides will be happy with the figures.

Casualty had a boost and depressed X Factor a little. X Factor was back on form and will not see figures tumble if it maintains this form with the team on screen that clearly everyone prefers.

Casualty was excellent if (like me) you have watched it since the first episode 30 years ago as it was very much a tribute to its past and Charlie in particular. So it was a fan episode really. The action within the episode was not great. Anyone who saw the brilliant helicopter crash in ER will realise what this one was lacking. The budget and the jeopardy to major characters that was here rather underwhelming.

So it worked well as a tribute, less well as a long episode. But enjoyable to see the gang of three back together (Charlie, Duffy and Josh) as they are what has always been best about the show.

As for the continuation in Holby on Tuesday (presumably why two episodes of that last week to synchronise the timings). Well you cannot have a major disaster to a character who was in Holby City before she was in Casualty and a helicopter falling onto part of the hospital and then have a normal episode of Holby that just has a character say - ooh, rough day today in the ED. And another reply: - Aye, but about my patient with gout.

The cross over has to occur because two people from Casualty are now on the wards and in real life would be and so have to be covered by that show. Hence why they brought in several Holby characters briefly last night (notably the ice queen surgeon Jac).

And one of the now Holby regulars who was in last night as he was transferred to Holby from Casualty a while ago so knew Charlie from his time there, appears to have been caught up in the incident and we do not know how as he disappeared mid episode. So Fletch will feature strongly on Tuesday in the show where he is now a regular, as it should be.

It will also get a few viewers over to Holby who do not watch both sister shows as there are plans to move Holby filming to the same site as Casualty and very likely much more coordination of storylines will follow when that makes it technically more possible than it is now with them being made miles apart.

I think that's it. Im not sure what the expectation of the personnel changes is on the ratings but maybe we are expecting too much because just maybe it doesn't matter who is on the panel-the process just might be tired. We have seen that trend with BGT and The Voice this year.
Simon has been trying to reverse the decline for 3 years now.

They certainly don't turn for everybody on The Voice.

The problem with TXF is not who is sitting on the panel, or who is introducing the singers before and hugging them after their audition.
The big problem for me is its complete and utter predictability. We were watching it yesterday, and it felt like ticking boxes:
The ones with the good voices (or what passes as a good voice on TXF) were all more or less attractive.
The hideous looking freaks were all spectacularly bad.
Oh, I just happen to have written a song about a dead relative. Never ever performed it, but I just happen to know all the words off by heart. As you do.
And who would have thought that the guy they filmed one of the fake period intros with would turn out to be good?

It's funny to watch it with this in mind once or twice, but I fear this might wear off pretty soon...

It bombed - nobody watched it

Ha ha ha ha ha. Very true. Probably why he's better suited to DIY SOS alone.

Honestly? I really don't know. Not often I could be accused of sitting on the fence, but I've no strong opinions on this one. But that's a great thing. Ratings have been very predictable for the most part this year, I love that we're stepping into a period where quite a lot is unknown!

I've noticed there have been fewer rejects the last 2 or 3 years, probably because of The Voice. I prefer that really. They only show the really comically bad ones, and they usually get a yes anyway!

Ratings come from Gallifrey Base but I’ve adapted them into schedules.

Saturday 27 August 2016 Ratings Roundup
BBC 1
06:00: Breakfast - 1.36m (37.5%)
10:00: Saturday Kitchen - 1.09m (18.2%)
11:30: Lorraine’s Fast, Fresh and Easy Food - 910k (14.4%)
12:00: Football Focus - 800k (11.1%)
12:30: Bargain Hunt - 1.08m (13.3%)
13:10: Athletics: Diamond League - Lausanne Highlights - 860k (10.0%)
14:00: Rugby League: Challenge Cup Final - 970k (11.0%)
17:30: Now You See It - 1.12m (9.0%)
18:00: The Getaway Car - 1.40m (10.1%)
18:50: BBC News - 2.77m (18.9%)
19:00: BBC Regional News - 3.86m (25.4%)
19:10: Pointless Celebrities - 3.82m (23.7%)
20:00: Casualty - 5.13m (25.7%)
21:50: BBC News - 3.67m (22.0%)
22:15: Match of the Day - 3.02m (24.0%)
23:45: Film: Frankenstein - 580k (11.4%)

BBC 2
10:00: Homes Under the Hammer - 390k (6.6%)
13:25: Film: That’s Entertainment - 440k (5.5%)
15:30: Full Steam Ahead - 460k (5.3%)
16:30: Final Score - 1.03m (9.7%)
17:30: Flog It! - 1.33m (10.3%)
18:20: Gardeners’ World - 1.09m (7.7%)
19:30: Greece with Simon Reeve - 980k (5.5%)
20:30: Dad’s Army - 1.42m (7.0%)
21:00: Edinburgh Nights - 510k (2.5%)

ITV (inc. +1)
14:05: Doc Martin - 450k (5.7%)
16:05: Film: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - 1.03m (9.5%)
18:05: ITV Regional News - 1.99m (14.6%)
18:15: ITV News and Weather - 2.29m (16.4%)
18:30: You’ve Been Framed! - 1.84m (12.8%)
19:00: Go For It - 2.71m (17.0%)
20:00: The X Factor - 6.80m (34.0%)
* 5.39m (29.5%) at 20:00
* 7.40m (35.6%) at 21:25
* 5 minute peak - 7.53m (36.0%) at 21:10
21:30: Film: The Bourne Ultimatum - 2.43m (14.7%)
22:35: ITV News and Weather - 1.93m (13.9%)
22:50: Film: The Bourne Ultimatum - 1.56m (15.1%)

Channel 4 (inc. +1)
09:55: Formula 1: Belgian Grand Prix Practice 3 - 440k (7.3%)
11:55: Formula 1: Belgian Grand Prix Qualifying Live - 1.07m (13.3%)
16:45: A Place in the Sun: Summer Sun - 540k (4.9%)
17:40: Ugly House to Lovely House with George Clarke - 740k (5.5%)
18:40: Channel 4 News - 630k (4.4%)
19:00: Hidden Britain by Drone - 930k (5.8%)
20:00: The Good Terrorist - 440k (2.2%)
21:00: Film: Last Vegas - 1.20m (7.2%)
23:05: Film: Hot Tub Time Machine - 400k (5.5%)

Channel 5 (inc. +1)
16:00: Police Interceptors - 480k (5.0%)
17:00: Can’t Pay? We’ll Take it Away! - 680k (5.8%)
18:00: Can’t Pay? We’ll Take it Away! - 860k (6.2%)
19:00: Cricket on 5: England v Pakistan - 640k (4.0%)
20:00: World’s Fastest Train - 590k (3.0%)
21:00: Football on 5: The Championship - 590k (3.1%)

BIB - this is an old story, isn't it?

It surfaced when there were reports of the BBC vacating its Elstree base, and moving the entire EastEnders set to Pinewood. However, that never happened, the EE set at Elstree was amplified and Holby City stayed put.

Are there links to the new 'plans'? Or is this revived speculation?

And really, who can say the Beeb were wrong with Yes Prime Minister, the revival was very bad. It's hardly a hard and fast rule anyway because at the same time the Beeb weren't commissioning these things, they were commissioning revivals of Open All Hours and Rab C Nesbitt, and they did Reginald Perrin a few years back too. If they thought they had more potential than the others, so be it.



Yes, you can't write off three years in the hope it would come back, especially as it might not. The entire management team could have left by then. Even if that were the case, there are still more Tuesdays in the year without it than there are with.


Peter Fincham used to say that ITV had some consultants in a few years back and they suggested they should only show one drama a week because that would be the most cost-effective thing to do, and Fincham said he rejected that idea. Although then he was responsible for several summers when we had no dramas a week for several months, so not sure how well he comes out of that story. But it is the case, I think, that it's all very well treading water in the summer and expecting the audience to come back for The X Factor, but it relies on the audience knowing The X Factor is back, which they might not. If you give the audience reasons to switch off, they'll look elsewhere and find something they might prefer.


No, they're not permitted to do so in the charter. But the point of launching BBC Studios is that, as a commercial operation, they could now do so.


Well, they have The Voice to replace it, surely? OK, so it's a different format, but it's not that different. Get an amusing panel on there, add a few more laughs and run it in quarter four and for most people you will have a perfectly acceptable replacement. The X Factor itself was a replacement for Pop Idol, and people initially tuned in because it was Son Of Pop Idol, not for anything new X Factor was bringing to the table.


I think this is expecting Newszoids to be something it isn't, though, really. Once you go past the novelty of the puppets, the series is just Dead Ringers off Radio 4 with all the same people writing it, all the same people doing the impressions, and all the same jokes. It's woefully unsuited to a Saturday night slot.

Spitting Image did alright, but there was actually a point to Spitting Image, people didn't watch it for the puppets, they watched it because it was anarchic, it was topical and it didn't give a toss about anyone. It felt like it really mattered. This doesn't. I think it'll do even worse here than it did last time.

No, but the people that are clearly terrible get showered in praise. Nobody turns around, then the judges start going on about how they were amazing, but they "aren't right for them".

That's a little bit how X Factor felt, but not as bad.

The praise from Twitter for The X Factor is from people you expect, Reality TV lovers who watch crap like TOWIE. No one smart would fall for them

BIB - There we go then, does that not prove that Casualty dented The X Factor? Looks like most people assumed Casualty was only an hour long and maybe turned over at 9 when it turned out it wasn't.

Are you saying that some Casualty viewers may have switched over to X factor at 9pm thinking that Casualty had finished even though it was still on?

I notice that X Factor's peak was just after Dad's Army finished on BBC2. Maybe it was Dad's Army that dented X Factor's ratings yesterday.

Could it include some former viewers that might return? The success of these reality shows is to hominem the casual viewers. X Factor's problem is that it hasn't done that successfully overthrow last few years.

No, I meant that some people might have just assumed it was a regular episode of Casualty, but once it got past 9 decided to watch the rest on catchup and put The X Factor on. I've seen that happen in the past (usually with hour long episodes of Emmerdale!) so it wouldn't surprise me.

I can't believe that at 9pm with Casualty continuing and in the middle of a big scene they thought it was the end of the episode.

Thanks for this lewie.

So it started quite low then, probably not helped by the lead-in from Go For It. It's good to see with just 5-mins to go it was at 7.4m. That seems to suggest that the audience increased throughout and didn't tail off like it has done before given the average of 6.8m. Don't supposed you know the number excluding +1 lewie? I'll probably asking that every week. Thanks.

Interesting that the cricket highlights did better than the football highlights. Good to see sport coverage on C5 but shame it doesn't rate better. Saturdays are pretty poor for them but I'm not sure what they can do about it really.