So it beat Coronation Street and EastEnders. Oh my God. That either means EE + CS got really low or Tennis just got really really high.

Yeh, The Royal and Heartbeat have both collapsed in terms of ratings since they lost their Coronation Street lead-in.

I never thought they would reach the low 4ms.

Basically, look at Wild at Heart getting around 8 million viewers after Dancing on Ice. Imagine if The Bill was in that slot after a talent show on a Sunday night - it would get a brilliant audience like that - because you can see in its slot at the moment it can only get around 5 million viewers as it's against good BBC opposition, which on Sunday there usually isn't any. And now there is, ITV's established shows like The Royal and Heartbeat are being left obscured in primetime while viewers flock to a BBC schedule which is headed with excitement and innovation.

ITV have potential to turn it round - but in my opinion their worst mistake was putting 'Beat the Star' in a Sunday slot. OK, it got decent ratings, but it was the wrong day and it ruined what has been a consistent schedule for the last 10 or even more years. In other words, ITV should have really thought about what they had to lose - Sunday was their best day, and it turned out to be their worst day on Sunday night. OK, the competition wasn't great, and a two hour drama would be better with The Royal at 7pm so it could maintain some audience, but ITV bit the bullet too much and put a 2 hour drama repeat of Marple at 6pm, which in my opinion was an awful mistake, because ITV could have easily got more viewers in that time.

I hope in the next few weeks ITV sort it out. A schedule like this would be nice so ITV could get some momentum:-

6:00pm Emmerdale Farm
6:30pm Classic Coronation Street
7:00pm Heartbeat/The Royal
8:00pm 2 hour drama [Marple/Poirot/Foyle/Midsomer/Movie Premiere/Affinity/etc.]
10:00pm News Knight/Headcases/ irreverent comedy
10:30pm The Late News
10:45pm The South Bank Show

Well, personally, I think the only OTHER way to restore Sunday's is to have Dancing on Ice, X Factor Results on that night while having Emmerdale + Coronation Street there for the rest of the year (with extensive advertising). The schedule above has a 'classic soap hour'. That should get around 4-5 million viewers watching and at 7pm, that should turn into 6-7 million viewers, and by 8pm we should have around 6-7 million viewers for the 2 hour drama with the comedy at 10pm getting around 4-5 million viewers.

Why couldn't ITV just keep it simple?

Media Guardian are reporting that Criminal Justice got 5.5 million.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008...ratings.murray

Tennis (BBC2): 4.3m (23%), peaking 5.5m (27%).
Tennis (BBC1): 8.6m (37%), peaking 10.4m (43.5%). (Half of that was against Coronation St!)
Criminal Justice (BBC1): 5.5m (26%).

Don't you just love 'related articles', chosen by computers!

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/2...y_victory.html

So, it's about Andy Murray. The related articles list reads:

Al Murray fronts new ITV1 sketch show
DJ Andy Kershaw faces 3 months in jail
Salary of C4's Andy Duncan doubles to £1.2m
Media money: Is Channel 4’s Andy Duncan paid too much?
On location: Andy McNab’s Tour of Duty



K

The BBC have axed Out Of The Blue. From Broadcast:

BBC axes Out of the Blue

Out of the Blue, the Australian soap ordered by the BBC as a successor to Neighbours, is to be axed after just a single series.
The expensive soap was commissioned from Australian producer Southern Star Entertainment after Five outbid the BBC for the rights to Neighbours, and was widely seen as its attempt to replace the FremantleMedia offering. However, Out of the Blue has attracted disappointing ratings since its launch.

It debuted on BBC1 in April in a 2.10pm weekday slot with just under 1.2m viewers, but was switched to BBC2 less than a month later after its audience halved – at one point dipping as low as 527,000. Since its move to BBC2 it has averaged just 125,000 viewers, with lows of just over 80,000.

When it was commissioned, BBC head of fiction Jane Tranter hailed the show as "an ambitious project that we think will break new ground, at the same time as providing daytime audiences with a compelling and intriguing watch".

But last night Tranter told a Royal Television Society event that Out of the Blue would not be recommissioned after the current run. She added that it "just didn't grab hold" of the loyal, daily audience that soaps need to survive.

Tranter also distanced herself from the decision to downgrade the soap to a BBC2 slot, saying "the scheduling wasn't my decision at all."

Out of the Blue centres on a group of 30-something friends who return home for a school reunion, but are flung together in a way they had not expected after one of the group is murdered.

The series is also aired in Australia by Network Ten, which also broadcasts Neighbours.

lol... poor automated system thinks its done well.

Monday 30th June Soap Overnights
18.30- Hollyoaks (C4): 1.8m
19.00- Hollyoaks (E4): 673,100
19.00- Emmerdale: 5.6m (31.0%)
19.30- Coronation Street: 7.6m (38.4%)
20.00- EastEnders: 7.4m (34.5%)
20.30- Coronation Street: 7.4m (32.6%)

News overnights
22.00- ITV News at Ten: 3.5m (17.1%)
22.35- BBC News: 3.6m (21.5%)

I'm glad News at Ten did well last night, even if it still lost out in the news battle! Julian Manyon's Zimbabwe report was pretty good.

Does anyone know if it has been a total flop down under as well?

News overnights
22.00- ITV News at Ten: 3.5m (17.1%)
22.35- BBC News: 3.6m (21.5%)

It just proves that there are 7m news viewers. It normally breaks 4.8m BBC to 2.2m ITN. Within that there are a core viewers for BBC of about 3.5m and 2m for ITN, with about 1.5m willing to watch either. ITVs short term goal has to be targeting those 1.5m viewers who are willing to switch.

Not aired yet.

It's having to be re-edited because it didnt get the right classification for the 6pm timeslot - either into extended episodes to show in primetime, or edited to show in the 6pm slot.

ignore

But only willing to watch if BBC News isnt on or starts late.

News At Ten got a good leg up from Police Camera Action which surprised me considering how well BBC1 did yesterday evening.

Thanks for that. Makes you wonder if they'll bother now.

No its 3m head-to-head with the right lead in.

Great ratings for the tennis and decent ratings for Criminal Justice and Police, Camera, Action.

Next week will be interesting as New Tricks starts and ususlly bring in big crowds and could dent P,C,A!

Looks like the Tennis really captured the imagination last night - especially to perform so well up against Coronation Street! You wonder what would be possible if a Brit actually made the final one year...

Very strong start for Criminal Justice too. 5.5m is a very solid figure for a drama at any time of the year. It'll be interesting to see whether it picks up momentum via the scheduling or fades away.

From BBC Sport:

I agree with the guy- it was a good decision to move it to BBC1.

It does make me wonder- why don't Wimbledon get some floodlights on Centre Court/Court 1 and do evening sessions. Show them on BBC2, and if a situation like yesterday arsies, show it on BBC1. It would get pretty big audiences. Most of the other slams have evening sessions. The final would do great starting at 6/7pm on BBC1. But I suppose it's probably to do with tradition and history.

I said News at Ten would 'certainly not' beat BBC News. And I was 'NEARLY' proved wrong. Just goes to show that viewers like the 10pm slot for news. And obviously will watch the news at that time, on whatever channel. The BBC have been doing it for longer and have got a more loyal viewing audience for their 10 o'clock news. It'll take a while for ITV to recover. As long as they do the sorts of things they did last night - I feel the brilliant 'Mugabe' story which saw an ITN correspondent get the brunt of the African President's vile nature will see more viewers thinking 'This is actually quite a good news programme'.

It's very professional - it differs from the generic ITV News in many ways, and I hope the other news programmes will receive identities of their own with different studio looks and a consistent presenting team. 'The Evening News' could be one of ITV's next steps.

Very interesting stats.

I wouldn't necessarily imagine BBC1 as being aimed specifically at the 16-34 demographic, but yet it blows all other competition out of the water in that respect.

Also interesting that CH4 who I would say is designed to appeal more to the 16-34 crowd, does only marginally better than BBC2 who I'd say is not focused on that same demographic.

ITV? No surprises about it's own performance there. But surprising that it still does about the same as FIVE and better than E4.

CH5, another channel I see as trying to draw in the 16-34 crowd, also fails spectacularly.

Now E4 who I'd say is designed to appeal purely to the 16-34 crowd...pitiful.

I think these stats might imply that the 16-34 crowd simply want to watch good television, like any other demographic, and that all attempts to patronise them by telling them that certain shows are just for them are rejected.

I don't know if anybody watched it but there was a very interesting documentary on BBC4 the other night about television's relationship with teenagers and young people's attitudes to 'yoof' TV. It did seem that when TV programmers try too hard to directly appeal to them then they feel patronised and reject it because they can all too easily spot when TV people are trying to make out that they are 'down with the kids'.

By the way, do you have the 16-34 shares for BBC3?
Because nowadays that channel appears to be trying to emulate E4 and directly target 16-34 viewers.

The thing is, people don't realise, by appealing to an older audience, you are appealing to a younger audience too!

For example, families. If you appeal to every member in a room watching TV by putting trailers on in the break and generally giving quality programming, these younger viewers will grow up with the BBC.

Viewers used to grow up with ITV, but not anymore.

the same reason they dont offer the right to Sky, or let players wear anything other than white or play games on the middle Sunday.