OK, last call for Poll of 2012 ballots. Polls close at 11pm tonight.
Unlike previous years I’ve not been keeping count of votes as they arrive so I have no idea what winning and losing (although I have been reading so can spot trends) and won’t know until I count them up tomorrow. You’ll all find out the results in the next few days – the main write up on UKGameshows.com and the ITV2 afterparty spin-off over here.
Off topic from the poll, but just as important!
Small ratings round up from yesterday
Countdown – 336k (4.6%)
Face the Clock – 279k (3.2%)
Deal or No Deal – 1.08m (9.6%)
Tipping Point – 1.68m (14.8)
The Chase – 3.52m (22.6%)
Perfection – 1.12m (11.2%)
Pointless – 3.45m (21.1%)
In terms of Face the Clock, I think we are looking at the first flop of the year. It seems to be dragging down the C4 afternoon schedule with Countdown hitting new lows and Deal or No Deal wearing away.
The Chase and Pointless are still close, but the difference in share points between the two is growing. I think that BBC1’s daytime drama Privates is dragging down their schedule at present. It’s not on next week, so we will see what happens to it then.
Also, it looks like Tipping Point is growing. 🙁
Countdown around a third of a million? I know it’s iconic, but Korky the Cat was the front cover star of issue 1 of the Dandy, remained a fixture for scores of years and yet faded away to the point where it made no impact whatsoever. Could the same thing happen to Countdown? If Channel 4 wanted that to happen for some reason (which I don’t think they do; it would make no sense) then they’re going about it the right way. Exit, pursued by Ratings Bear.
That said, I did record today’s episode because I know one of the contestants on it and it’ll be the first whole episode I’ve watched for years, so that’s something.
I just looked at the schedules. Countdown started today at 2.40pm. What on god’s earth is that? Who remembers to sit down at 2.40 for anything?
The problem is that, with Deal now an hour and Countdown at 50 minutes, there’s no other places for them to go. C4 have to stick in cheap re-runs of reality stuff from 5-6 now because the competition of Pointless and Chase is too much for them. The tanks have been parked and C4’s having to drive around them.
If C4 really cared about their brands and wanted them to stick around for a long time, I think they should maybe consider shortening the running time, leaving people wanting a little more and not stretching them beyond the point of no return. Make Countdown 30 minutes again and Deal 45.
45-minute Countdown made scheduling sense at the time, I think. That time was, what, a decade ago now? A return to 30 minutes would be good.
DoND being 60 minutes instead of 45 is probably to reduce the cost-per-hour by 25% more than anything else. The show does have a different feel at 60 minutes, with much more room for contemplation and/or banter – which is sometimes exactly what I want from DoND, and sometimes exactly what I don’t. The problem with any fixed timeslot for DoND is that some episodes warrant (at least) twice the running time of others, and any edit to a fixed timeslot is going to be A Bit Of A Spoiler. There’s a reason NBC straddled their episodes. (Though it clearly wasn’t that, given that they outright spoiled almost every episode from season three onwards.)
Actually, 30-minute Countdown at 3 leading to 1001 Things at 3:30 and DoND at 4 is an awfully intuitive schedule, IMHO.
Agree with Mr. Bodycombe that Countdown works at 30 minutes in a way it doesn’t at 45. If anything, the present Supreme Championship is showing up how rubbish the game is at splitting the very best players. In the last four matches, five letters rounds have been won with a better word, six have been lost on an invalid word.
And that 2.40 is a bonkers start time – it would be interesting to learn how many people watch on 4+1, the 4seven repeats, or catchup.
I defer to Mr. Howell on the running time of Deal – he watches the show with a regularity I’ll never match.
Part of Channel 4’s problem is that they’ve lumbered themselves with The Simpsons and Hollyoaks in the 6pm hour. The latter show could very easily remain on E4, allowing a later slot for Come Dine with Me, a less jarring transition into Channel 4 News, and ungumming the 5pm hour.
I know it’s a bit of a long shot with the Poll and everything, but any chance of uploading Klugste Deutsche?
I’m afraid it won’t be this weekend because tomorrow I need bandwidth for watching and commentating on Schlag den Raab.
Understandable. Cheers Brig. Looking forward to the commentary.
Also, the normal stream for Prosieben has changed. I’m looking for a feed for tommorrow’s show at the minute.
I’ll try and put it up on Sunday.
Thanks for the warning, the second Pro 7 link down the side of the place we normally use seems to work.
I’m aware. It’s just that the picture seems a little compressed and small. I’ll try and get one that gives a full picture.
The original link seems to work fine in Firefox for me, although you may need VLC installed.
I recommand to watch our new series of “Ich bin ein Star- holt mich hier raus!”. It started yesterday so you can watch it on rtlnow.de with a proxy and it was great! Daniel Hartwich did a good job and in the end they’ve shown the best bits of Dirk Bach, who passed away this year. This was also seen as the saddest moment in Germany last year for most of the people, he was much beloved.
The bushtucker trial was a “marriage”, did you have one like that too? Today they will put one bachelor contestant into the “dschungel-kloake” (no idea how to translate it)…
I’m a fan of I’m A Celeb, and I gave Ich bin ein star a go last night. The Bushtucker trial last night has never been on our version of the show, but it was bloody good.
It’s not too bad actually and I might catch some more throughout the series.