Gamey people are well served this evening (well I say that but…), things on tonight include Don’t Scare the Hare (5:25pm, BBC1), Sing If You Can (7pm, ITV), So You Think You Can Dance? (6:45pm BBC1), Who Dares Wins? (8pm, BBC1), Britain’s Got Talent (8pm, ITV1) and The Million Pound Drop – Live! (9pm, C4).
I know you like to talk about them, so talk about them here.
One of the contestants on Don’t Scare the Hare is Spartan Off Of Gladiators’ brother.
Oh bloody hell, not the alarm frogs *again*.
Which begs the question – how many games do they have? Is it TW19Y all over again?
Well, fancy that – all this talk of Eurovision and what comes up as a list on Who Dares Wins? The cities that have hosted the thing.
Also, in the last series we had countries whose names are last alphabetically – and now we have the countries at the other end.
😯
With The Rich List (FFS, “Who Dares Wins”?!) and Pointless, there just aren’t enough lists to go round.
Is a 50,000 pound win a common thing on Who Dares Wins? I only started watching last episode, but this team has won it twice… Seems like it would be pretty hard.
Common but not ultra rare. It usually won about 3-4 times per series, depending on how good the couple is. The best teams who have a good streak tend to win it a couple of times. They could’ve won it for a third time tonight had Dawn didn’t mention that wrong song title.
Even if she’d got the title right, though, it would have still been a wrong answer… 😉
John Lennon recorded “Jealous Guy” in 1971, but it was not released as a single until after his death – and when it was, Roxy Music performed it.
According to my NME Chart book John Lennon did have a hit with Jealous Guy (36 in December 1985). However that chart isn’t the one they use on the show.
(throws book away)
As it happened, “Imagine” wasn’t on the list either…
3.22m Germans watched The Cube – Defeat the Dice last night with only 1.75m (16.5% share) coming from the 14-49 demographic. Most German websites are sating the 14-49 demo rating was poor. The German websites tend to stress about that demographic.
The Perfect Minute had 2.44m but their last show was more of a “best of the games” since it was the last show of the second series. They clashed with The Cube’s in the first hour (9.15pm CET).
They’re stating The Royal Wedding was to blame for the other channels (all but ARD which aired the royal show Kiss Me, Kate! who had nearly 6 million at 7.15pm CET) but it seems from their view that The Cube produced a meh rating.
On another note, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (Wer Wird Millionair?), who was the lead in show to The Cube had 4.54m but was down compared to last year which had 4.54. Last night’s edition was episode #942. It’s amazing how the German version who STILL uses the original music from the show and the original 15 question money tree is still popular over there.
It’s interesting, I thought if anyone would take to it it would be the Germans.
Saying that, the first game wasn’t grabbing me at all, so it would be no surprise if it didn’t grab them and they switched over either.
I agree with you that the show has lost in translation over there but The Perfect Minute has been airing since Spring 2010 so they’ve had a massive head start. I also must say The Perfect Minute is way better than Minute to Win It. They produce the format much better over there.
Apparently, The Perfect Minute has revived Ulla Kock am Brink’s game show career. Since it’s been nine years since she hosted a game show (according to Wiki).
I have to say that the question setting on MPD has improved vastly since the first series or two. Not so many quantitive questions now.
That was me BTW.
12yard have had a second show commissioned last week. Extremely high concept stuff, sounds terrific. No I’m not talking about HOFAH, this is another show.
Don’t Scare The Hare dropped to 1.4m (10.5%) last night. That really is horrific. It was comfortably beaten by ITV’s news bulletins at the same time.
Other ratings for last night:
So You Think You Can Dance: 3.1m (17%) and 3.2m (13.9%)
Who Dares Wins: 4.0m (17.6%)
Sing If You Can: 3.3m (17.4%)
Britain’s Got Talent: 9.5m (40%)
The Million Pound Drop Live: 1.9m (8.6%)
So You Think You Can Dance continues to tank, and is overtaken by Sing If You Can. Who Dares Wins did very well considering its slot and the fact it was sandwiched in-between the dancing shows. Britain’s Got Talent is still a juggernaut (despite what the tabloids say), whilst The Million Pound Drop looks a little on the low side.
Britain’s Got Talent is still a ratings juggernaut but I agree to what some have said on last night’s show. The audition acts were poor and a bit meh for those who got through. The girl reading a poem with a snake on her isn’t a talent. I even have to agree with Kevin O’Sullivan. Every act that appears on the show’s auditions that are aged 10 or under are guaranteed a place into the next round.
I’m finding two problems with the show at the monent.
1) The Hoff shouldn’t be a judge. He hardly knows anything and has proved in recent weeks, he knows sod all about British culture. They should’ve gave the job to Louis Walsh full time since he knows his music background (like Simon). Also if Got to Dance didn’t existed, then Ashley Banjo could’ve filled the third seat if it was the case. He could be the Cheryl Cole of BGT.
2) Has the talent ran out? We’ve had three of seven weeks of auditions and there hasn’t been any acts that has wowed the viewers. Even last night, having an hour show in London, which had Diversity, Spellbound & George Sampson all auditioning there. It seems that nobody had a decent winning act on the show. There should be enough decent acts to fill a grand final (ten acts) but feel they will struggle filling in the semi final slots (forty acts).
The talent hasn’t run out. There’s plenty of talent in Britain. The problem is that the producers don’t put the talent through to the judges round. There are numerous audition rounds before acts even get to see the judges. But the editorial stance of the show means that genuinely talented people are sent home during the pre-judges selection process, leaving just the freaks, bad acts and sob stories left in the competition.
Take note, this post here is the only time I will agree with Joe.
Last nights ratings.
Don’t Scare the Hare: 1.4m (10.3%)
Down 500k to last weeks series premiere
Sing if You Can: 3.23m (17.4%) , +1: 77k = 3.23m
Down 2.24m since series premiere, down 310k to last week.
Who Dares Wins: 4.0m (17.6%)
Up 400k to last weeks series return.
Britain’s Got Talent: 9.5m (40.0%)
Exactly the same to last week with all but the odd share point.
So You Think You Can Dance Performances: 3.1m (16.7%)
Down 500k to last week.
So You Think You Can Dance Results: 3.2m (14.0%)
Up 200k to last week.
The Million Pound Drop Live: 1.9m ( 8.6%) , +1: 268k
So it looks the only show who did well last night was actually Who Dares Wins. Well done them.
As for SYTYCD? They might as well swap it with Doctor Who to save the BBC some dignity.
WHYYYYYYYYYY!!! would any sane person call a show don’t scare the hare? It just depresses me every time I hear it.
£10 says it’s because Rabbit didn’t rhyme with anything.
Don’t Break The Rabbit’s Habbit?
Don’t Steal The Bunny’s Money?
Those are actually good figures for MPD, up on last Saturday (and indeed moving to 9pm on Friday didn’t really hurt it very much either).
I’m hoping Sing If You Can drops beneath 3m at some point so I can bring Rowdy Roddy Piper out. I don’t think the show is that awful, although last night’s distractions were a bit rubbish.
And yet 17.4% is not that far away from what the Cube is getting…
DStH looks like a confirmed turkey at 10%.
I’m not the first person to say The Cube isn’t performing currently, I also think share is a very overrated statistic that doesn’t take into account general dissatisfaction (if nobody is watching it will artificially inflate the shares). If I’m an advertiser, a share figure is of little use to me.
I would however suggest that The Cube was capable of six mill with a big show to lead into and so may be worth a second chance in the Autumn to see if it was a fluke or not, with SiYC this clearly isn’t happening.
Dissatisfaction? How does that work? If no-one’s happy with the general state of TV, it won’t “inflate” the shares because they’ll remain the same regardless of whether 10 or 10million people are watching TV. That’s what makes shares a useful tool.
Of course if does, if fewer people are watching generally, and let’s not kid ourselves that people are not watching So You Think You Can Dance and Sing If You Can for an exciting and highly rated third option, they are in fact switching off, but with less people watching generally it pushes their shares upwards. Is that how maths works? Shares are mildly interesting, but I do not need a percentage to determine if a show is doing OK or not. It’s something TV people use to feel better about themselves.
One of us is being incredibly stupid, but I don’t know which.
Let’s assume there’s only three channels: BBC, ITV and Other.
1st Saturday – weather is poor. 20million viewers watch
BBC gets 4m (20% share)
ITV gets 3m (15% share)
Other gets 13m
2nd Saturday – weather is good. 15million viewers watch
BBC gets 3m (20% share)
ITV gets 2.25m (15% share)
Other gets 9.75m
It looks like BBC and ITV have had a bad night. But the share shows us that – like for like – they captured the same proportion of people who chose to watch TV the week before.
Now consider this case:
3rd Saturday – weather is good. 15million viewers watch
BBC gets 3m (20% share)
ITV gets 2.75m (18.3% share)
Other gets 9.25m
Although ITV are still down on week 1 in terms of number of eyeballs, they had their best share to date. So technically, week 3 was their best performance against the rest of the TV market – the problem was that people didn’t want to watch TV because of the good weather.
By and large, TV producers worry about share more than eyeballs. They can’t do a lot if (e.g.) it’s good weather, it’s a holiday, it’s half term, it’s the World Cup or whatever. What they can do is make the people who are watching switch over and/or stick with them.
That said, advertisers probably worry about eyeballs more, because they would argue that it’s up to TV to get people to watch their shows rather than go out, do the Internet etc.
Yes I get the weather thing, shows are expected to get less in the Summer.
BUT, last night The Cube got a 20% share on 3.5m, about what it’s been getting in previous weeks in terms of audience, very slightly higher in fact, but seemingly the only reason the share is up is because Countryfile has dropped a million viewers for whatever reason. Put like that it’s difficult not to feel a bit “so what?” really. It’s still doing performing worse than it was doing in the Autumn. This is whether we beleive the show is good or not.
The idea that SYTYCD or SiYC are doing not completely awfully based on share feels very silly considering Doc Who can pull 6m before them and BGT can pull 10m after them. In the fact the total viewing audience based on ITV and BBC1 alone more than doubles at 8pm, having taken a considerable dip at 7pm, and the only reason the shares don’t look too awful is because it’s two flopping shows on at the same time getting about the same rating. Are we to believe there was suddenly a massive rain shower over the UK at 8pm? Every week?
This was never an issue back in television’s golden age of 2006 when Doctor Who and Saturday Night Takeaway were both on at the same time at about the same time of year and both could pull 7m+ audiences. Nobody went on about share then, which reiterates the idea that people only ever talk about share when things are doing less well then they would hope.
SNT was never on in May, was it? In any case, share has always been the most important – remember ITV’s ill-fated pledge to advertisers that their audience share would not drop below 25? And even in 2005, MediaGuardian would always report audience share alongside viewing figures: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/oct/17/overnights
I take your point that share can flatter shows when the total audience is low, but at this time of year there is the “Just got in from the Farmer’s Market” factor when early evening programmes really suffer.
The reason for The Cube’s share increase will be that it was on at 6:30pm instead of 7pm. I think last night’s rating was pretty decent for it, actually. Share can be useful when circumstances such as good weather come into play but they are a bit overused.
SNT never aired in May. Definitely March/April for most of the series but never in May.
Yes, probably. DW is starting relatively late this year, although I’m not convinced I see the relevance.
Vaguely in the direction of Mr. B., but not exactly private: someone has asked a question in Comment is Free underneath VC’s latest Observer column asking when the next series of Only Connect is. The question has 9 recommends already. I don’t know if VC reads the CiFs beneath her own articles (if I were published, I wouldn’t) but people would like to know the answer, if you know it. (Or you could plug the Connecting Wall night…)
I won’t waste my breath on CiF, if that’s OK, but it’ll be around late August.