It says Wednesday 14 May 2008 12:00am - 12:00am so it's obviously a mistake

I think the plan is to air Corrie at 7pm on the 14th, with no Emmerdale that night.

I think 20m is a little ambitious. I think 12m at a push.

Nah- that's too high. I expect something more like 10m-12m for the entire coverage. Maybe a peak of 16m. Sky Sports will get 2 million viewers.

An all England final? For the first time ever?

Everyone will be watching this I reckon.

Except me. Can't abide football.

I don't think we will ever see figures of 20m again no matter what the circumstances. I think that is now a thing of the past.

Nah man; that's too high. Even England matches don't rate that much. The England vs. Sweden World Cup 2006 match averaged around 14.5m for the entire coverage (overnight figure).

Plus, the total number of people watching tv at that time is 25 million people. If 20m watched it, that would be a 80% share, which is pretty much impossible. The Apprentice rateds very well, and will get a decent rating.

I for one will be watching The Apprentice rather than what is nothing more than a 'Grand Slam Sunday' Premiership fixture in a party frock.

Me either. Same for my Mum and my brother. When Liverpool were playing in 2005, I was shopping in Asda. Although I could have done without the score updates over the tannoy, I've never had such a pleasant peaceful shopping trip thanks to the store being virtually deserted.


This sounds about right I reckon. It will likely peak towards the end, even moreso in the event of penalties etc, but I seriously doubt 20m. I think The Apprentice will no doubt see it's rating dented for a week, but should still attract several million.

Well I read recently that it is likely to cost the British Economy close to £1billion

Thats paper talk. If they qualify people moan about absenteeism at work, if they dont qualify then brewers go bust

I guess I should've looked properly, lol.

Pretty good schedule. So, it'll be Man Utd vs. Chelsea. I think if Liverpool were in, the ratings might have been a touch higher, but not too much.

I think if ITV want to maximise their ratings this is what they should do in terms of scheduling:
17.00-18.00: Classic Champions League Finals- ITV4
18.00-19.00: Champions League Final Buildup- ITV4
19.00-19.30: The Big Match: Buildup Live- ITV1
19.30-22.00: Champions League Final Live- ITV1
22.00-22.30: The Big Match: Post-Match Live- ITV1

I put the build-up show from 19.00-19.30 as separate from the "main" show, as this would make the "main" shows ratings higher, as the buildup doesn't do too well. Usually the coverage of the "main" show starts at 19.00, but with this schedule the buildup will be given a separate overnight rating. Same for the Post-Match.

Five
9pm CSI 2.1m (8%)
10pm CSI: Miami 1.4m (7.6%)

ITV2
9pm Bionic Woman 453,000 (1.99%)
* series average: 1m (4.95%)
* launched with 2.2m (10.5%)

All hours shares for Tuesday 29 April 2008: ITV1 – 23.1%, BBC1 – 23%, C4 – 9.3%, BBC2 – 7.2%, Five – 5.9%, multichannel – 30.9%.

Peaktime (6pm to 10.30pm) shares: ITV1 – 29.1%, BBC1 – 26.5%, C4 – 8.7%, BBC2 – 5.8%, Five – 5.1%, multichannel – 24.3%.

Very good peaktime shares for both ITV1 and BBC1. That must be the lowest multichannel peak time share in a while. Also, well done to ITV1 for beating BBC1 in the all hours shares- it rarely happens nowadays, so I'm sure ITV will be chuffed.

In weekdays, ITV get quite close to the BBC. I bet it wishes it could have the privileges to have news at 11pm. Then they could play around with 10pm dramas.

Pushing Daisies could get a 10pm-11pm slot! Along with other US imports and 'trial' shows.

But that's what they did before. They have no flexibility now in the evenings and News At Ten always gets spanked in the ratings. I really didn't see the point in changing it.

I think having the news at 10.30pm was worse though. Perhaps moving it to 11pm would be the best solution.

The British Soap Awards will be a good indication of News at Ten. The core audience will be made up of females- those who generally watch the news these days. If 6m are watching the soap awards and ITV use their heads and have no ad break at 10pm then News at Ten could be lucky to cling on to at least 3m of that audience.

I actually think there is no place for News at Ten in the modern TV world. There is the BBC News at Ten for starters. The approach which News at Ten takes is clearly a high quality approach but its extremely back to basics and stripped back and although not popular on forums such as this the world of news has now moved forward and News at Ten is showing just that.

I think they should have the news at 11pm across the week (including weekends with weekend presenter) to make it more consistent and flexible. There is definitely a market at 10pm which isn't news based but the only way they can find that audience is through trial and error. Perhaps ITV should have been brave and poached Big Brother from Channel 4 when they were rumoured to be interested. Theres 3 months of 10pm slots already full with guaranteed ratings above 4m.

I agree with this. I was never too keen on News at Ten, but given what they were churning out at 10pm, it was probably for the best. Holly and Fearne go dating and the like were just filler shows getting poor ratings, with no long-running potential and the 30 minute slot just seemed a hassle. It also means they can do 1 hour dramas instead of dragging them out to 1 and a half hours to fill that space.

10pm has "untapped potential", IMO. As I've said a million times before, ITV and BBC1 shouldn't be putting the same programming up against each other, let alone news in this modern world.

The idea that ITV are getting less than 10% share some days for 10-11pm is appalling. Even a few US imports could improve on that.

I agree that ITV should move the news, but they cannot move it beyond 11 because of the PSB agreement IIRC. The latest they can really start it is at 10.30. Personally, I think it needs to move back to then, giving ITV another half hour for programming against the 10 o'clock news on BBC1.

Dunno if it was mentioned, but last week's Britain's Got Talent got an official rating of 10.96m which is brilliant, and places it in 4th place for 2008:

BARB UPDATE: (30/04/08)
Top 20 Officially Most watched programmes of 2008

01 - 13.02m - CORONATION STREET (18/01/08) - ITV1
02 - 12.08m - DANCING ON ICE (16/03/08) - ITV1
03 - 11.73m - EASTENDERS (24/03/08) - BBC1
04 - 10.96m - BRITAIN'S GOT TALENT (19/04/08) - ITV1
05 - 9.18m - MATCH OF THE DAY LIVE (06/02/08) - BBC1
06 - 9.14m - DOCTOR WHO (05/04/08) - BBC1
07 - 8.90m - LEWIS (24/02/08) - ITV1
08 - 8.91m - DANCING ON ICE - THE SKATE OFF (09/02/08) - ITV1
09 - 8.85m - EMMERDALE (02/01/08) - ITV1
10 - 8.60m - UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE LIVE: MAN UTD VS. BARCELONA (29/04/08) - ITV1 ***overnight

11 - 8.59m - WILD AT HEART (02/03/08) - ITV1
12 - 8.51m - HEARTBEAT (06/01/08) - ITV1
13 - 8.47m - CASUALTY (02/02/08) - BBC1
14 - 8.04m - ASHES TO ASHES (07/02/08) - BBC1
15 - 7.92m - FOYLES WAR (20/04/08) - ITV1
16 - 7.80m - THE NATIONAL LOTTERY - IN IT TO WIN IT (02/02/08) - BBC1
17 - 7.76m - ANT AND DEC'S SATURDAY NIGHT TAKEAWAY (15/03/08) - ITV1
18 - 7.43m - THE APPRENTICE (16/04/08)
19 - 7.36m - HARRY HILL’S TV BURP (26/01/08) - ITV1
20 - 7.27m - LARK RISE TO CANDLEFORD (13/01/08) - BBC1

Current ITV CL Contract:

£42m for 13 match nights (13 ITV1 games + 10 ITV4 games). So it's an average of £3.23m per match night.

Remember that's just the cost of the rights. On top of that there are all the production costs.

Obviously allowance also has to be made for the advertising revenue earned on ITV4 but overall ITV do not appear to be doing much better than break-even at best.

Next ITV CL Contract (2009-2012):

£55m for 17 match nights (17 ITV1 games only, no ITV4 games).

That's an average of £3.24m per match night, so at first glance appears to be an equivalent cost (before considering the loss of the ITV4 games). But it's not. One game will be a qualifying game not featuring an English club - this will have to go to ITV4 (if ITV are allowed to show it there) as it will only get a tiny audience.

So really it's £55m for 16 match nights = £3.44m per match night. There is also an increased risk of other games not featuring an English club - it will need all 4 English clubs to make the last 16 or otherwise there will be another game not featuring an English club.

So the CL really is pretty marginal for ITV. I think the reason that they show it on this basis is to avoid knock-on effects. If ITV didn't show it:

1) If it was on Five, it would give Five huge opportunities to cross promote other shows - ie there would be an adverse affect on ITV ratings in other areas.

2) If it was on Sky, it could lead to even higher Sky take-up which would again affect ITV ratings across the schedule.

So the CL is really a must for ITV even if it only breaks even on the actual games. ITV just cannot afford the large adverse affects of it being shown elsewhere.

When do yesterday's ratings come out?

from 9.30 onwards