Interesting analysis as always Zoe, and I do agree that ITV will be doing great that week.

Have you given any thought to 'Springwatch' which starts the same week. I know it's not hugely popular by the standards of BGT, but it still does pretty good business for BBC 2 (around 3 milion last year?).

I wonder if its ratings will be squeezed in the 30mins when it overlaps with BGT, or whether its audience are not the sort who would watch BGT or football?

I hadn't considered Springwatch at all and did not realise it was on then. Thanks for telling me It will be interesting to see how the ratings are affected- I would suspect not much although with extremely tough competition I don't know.

A completely different point entirely, but how do people think the documentary on Elizabeth Fritzl will do on Wednesday at 9pm up against the football & Apprentice? I think it'll only manage around 1.5m with tough competition, but could have done much better in a Monday slot.

Springwatch mainly takes viewers off BBC1. Same type of viewers as watch Holby & The One Show.

I think The Apprentice will do really well in the finale and get around 8-9m. However, I do think the show is in danger of becoming Big Brotherized and this will damage it in the long run.


IRT success was a surprise even to Five who I suspect only acquired as a filler programme but the fact that it could achieve high figures suggests that this sort of programme has an audience.

Thanks for those replies Zoe and George. If 'Springwatch' really does take viewers off Holby, BBC2 might even end up beating BBC1 on Thursday when 'Springwatch' goes head-to-head with 'Holby Blue'

I do hope it does do quite well in the ratings, as I think it's a really neat little show and doesn't deserve to suffer just because it happened to coincide when other big TV events.

I agree, I like Springwatch. Really unfortunate it clashes with BGT. I'll probably tape it, and then watch it after BGT. I imagine a lot of people doing that - perhaps with Holby City/The Apprentice too.

I was thinking this earlier.

The Apprentice will really have some tough comeptition ahead of it. It's got the football this week which should easily beat it and they've had to move it the following week.

I'm not sure when the final is but I think depending on the reception Big Brother gets when it starts, a similar audience may be split between BB and The Apprentice, unless C4 move Desperate Housewives to 9pm after BB starts. Although I think TA will comfortably beat BB its audience could drop.

I wonder whether The Apprentice would have been better placed on Thursdays at 9pm this year? Even before it started this year they would have known about things like The Soap Awards, BGT, England v USA, that it was likely atleast one English team would make the Champions League final and Big Brother. Even though The Apprentice would beat most of them, it's still placing it in tough slots.

Could someone please tell me what Greys Anatomy, Lost, Ugly Betty and DH get on UKTV please?

fanks.

Grey's Anatomy (Five)
24th April 2008 - 0.8m (5%)
20th March 2008 - 1.1m (6%)

Lost (Sky One)
11th May 2008 - 647,000 (3.1%)

Ugly Betty (Channel 4)
9th November 2007 - 1.8m (8%)

Desperate Housewives (Channel 4)
14th May 2008 - 1.8m (10.5%)
7th May 2008 - 1.8m (10%)

Just a selection of the overnights.

Grey's Anatomy: gets around 1.0m viewers, give or take 300,000 viewers.
Lost: gets around 1.0m viewers, give or take about 300,000 viewers.
Ugly Betty: can't remember exactly. I think it was between 1.7m-3m.
Desperate Housewives: 2.0m, give or take about 300,000 viewers.

Good to see DW back on form. Recovered nicely from the low of 5.9m a few weeks ago. BGT adds 1.1m which is also great. Next weeks figure will be interesting when it goes up against Eurovision. And PD has now lost 3.0m viewers since its debut. Doesn't suprise me really. Each episode is basically the same.

fanks

im being a geek and seeing how well ABC does over here.

EDIT: i quoted the benster as wel, but multiquote is being moody.

SUNDAY 18th MAY 2008:

ITV1
6.45pm Beat The Star 3.8m 20%
8pm Heartbeat 5.8m 25%
9pm Ultimate Force 3.5m 15.3%

Ch 4 (incl. +1)
5.45 Scrapheap Challenge 1.196m
7.00 Bremner, Bird and Fortune 1.340m
8.00 Bear Grylls: Born Survivor 955,400
9.00 Brokeback Mountain 1.839m

Sky One
6pm Gladiators 1.1m 7.7%
7pm Don't Forget the Lyrics 663,000 3.8%

ITV2
6pm American Idol 170,000
7pm American Idol 231,000
8pm Britain's Got Talent 745,000 3.5%
9pm Britain's Got More Talent 936,000 4.6%

More4
5.45pm Come Dine with Me 468,000 3.6%
6.15pm Come Dine with Me 474,000 3.2%

BBC3
8pm Doctor Who 571,000 2.8%
10pm Family Guy 836,000 4.9%

BBC1
7.30pm I'd Do Anything 6.4m 30.4%
8pm Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 7.3m 30.8%

BBC2
8pm Wild China 2.5m 10.6%
9pm Coast 2.3m 9.4%
10pm Russia: a Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby 2m 11.1%

Five
7.15pm Cricket 775,000 4%
8pm Extraordinary People The Girls with Too Much Skin 576,000 2.5%
9pm The Patriot 832,000 4.8%

Family Guy doing very well for BBC3.

Britain's Got Talent is doing amazingly.

But Heartbeat, well, it's not doing well at all. It shouldn't be going that low; it's because ITV have been messing around with it.

Any ratings for Lost and Ultimate Force?

ITV1 had a very poor weekend sharewise on Saturday & Sunday with the total adult and 16-34 shares being very low.

All hours shares for Sunday 18 May 2008: BBC1 – 23.4%, ITV1 – 13.3%, BBC2 – 9%, C4 – 7% (C4+1 – 0.7%), Five – 3.9%, multichannel – 42.7%.

Peaktime (6pm to 10.30pm) shares: BBC1 – 28.2%, ITV1 – 18.3%, BBC2 – 9.5%, C4 – 6.5% (C4+1 – 0.5%), Five – 3.8%, multichannel – 33.2%.

I think it's usually quite low to be honest, and shows like BGT and Beat the Star should be raising that.

Apparantly Heartbeat is on for another two weeks, then it's off for another little break

If that's true, I think ITV are possibly the worst schedulers ever. The easiest answer is this...it's quite simple.

7:00pm Heartbeat (after loads of advertising for its NEW REGULAR slot)
8:00pm Two hour drama
10:00pm Headcases
10:30pm The Late News

And then for Saturday:

6:00pm All Star Mr & Mrs
7:00pm Beat the Star
8:15pm Britain's Got Talent
9:15pm Pushing Daisies
10:15pm League One Play-Off Highlights
11:00pm The Best of Happy Hour

Imagine a night like that...

ITV are using Heartbeat as a filler show now putting it in a slot whenever there's nothing else to fill the 8pm slot with. The last time it was on we only got 3 episodes and it looks like there's only 3 this time-either air it all at once or in a permanent new slot like PJMillar suggests.

I hope ITV will now realise it WON'T perform whatever the situation. Infact I didn't see one single advert saying Heartbeat was back last week-people need to get back into a routine and taking it off after 3 episodes doesn't give it a stable routine.

They really need to put the soaps back on a Sunday. Their old Sunday schedule was much stronger. There also seems to be overload with big stories in Corrie playing out over Monday and Friday, and Emmerdale isn't doing too well on a Tuesday anymore. Something like this could work:

7.00pm- Emmerdale
7.30pm- Corrie
8.00pm- Heartbeat/Wild at Heart/2 hour drama/Dancing on Ice
9.00pm- Flexible slot, filler show when its a 1 hour programme at 8pm
10.00pm- Headcases

Beat the Star feels like it belongs on a Saturday and their old Sunday schedule was much more structured and rated higher than it currently does.

I didn't realise how poorly American Idol performs for ITV2 Saying that, it was a repeat. What does it get for its first showing on a Thursday/Friday?

The biggest surprise of the Sunday ratings apart from Heartbeat's poor performance was how well Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade did. Never saw that one coming at all!!

The Royal returns soon to ITV. It was filmed last June. Why they film these things and then take so long to show them, is beyond me. I love both shows and am sick of them being mucked around.

Usually around 0.4m-0.7m and the Sunday repeats are performing reasonably well for ITV2.


Same! I have no idea where that huge figure came from

Beat The Star seems to be stuck on 3.8m at the moment-it's good that it's maintaining and pulling in a reasonable share, but I think if it was moved to Saturday it could pull in a million more.

I'm still amazed how The Last Crusade pulled in such a high figure considering it's already been on BBC Three and it been on TV regularly but with the new film out this week I guess that it really not that surprising.

I'm surprised that BGMT on Sundays pulled in quite a high ratings, I thought it went out on Saturdays after BGT?