Saturday was best night on ITV1 in 2 Years

ITV1 had their best ratings for 2 Years on Saturday Night

Pop Idol was watched by 13 Million people

14 Million viewers tuned in to watch the Pop Idol result, which was 60% of the available TV Audience

Programmes on BBC1 got much lower ratings

Jim Davidson's Generation Game got 3.4 million
The National Lottery Jet Set was watched by 4.6 million
BBC News was viewed by 5.6 million

Even another batch of Home Video Howlers in a brand new edition of 'You've been Framed' was watched by 8.4 million, which was double what tuned in for BBC1's Dog Eat Dog

And Who Wants to be a Millionaire, was also watched by more viewers than Casualty

Added to that, it was the BBC's worst ever Sunday night ratings last weekend since records began. BBC One slumped to 17% share ending a humiliating weekend ratings defeat for the BBC.

Since the new Year, ITV have dealt BBC One a real bloody nose, they are beating the BBC on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday & Saturday nights.

Hurrah for ITV.

Why should ITV be congratulated for providing us with the dross that is, Pop Idol, You've Been Framed and Who Wants to be a Millionaire, square eyes?

Pop Idol may well have captured the 1 second attention span of some of Britain's brain doners, but it was a one off (thank god).

Saturday night television will always be crap because nobody ever puts any effort into it.

BBC One's and ITV1's Saturday night programmes are, and always have been, terrible.

I'm not sure what's wrong with Saturday night but it seems like TV companies use it as an opportunity to offload the biggest amount of **** e they can find in their archives.

The viewing figures are usually inversely proportional to the amout of intellectual content a program has, unfortunately. Always has been the case.

Expect it to get worse. Still, at least it keeps Square Eyes happy...

Probably because Saturday is a big going out night for many people. More people prefer going out on Saturdays to other nights, because more people won't have to work on Sunday than on any other day in the week. Although BBC1 have tried using the dubious 'Staying in is the new going out' slogan on Saturday nights, the TV companies know that Saturday will generally be less popular than any other night.

Sunday night tends to get all the good stuff because many people will need to be in at work or take the kids to school or do something the next day, added to that less things are open, so more people are likely to stay in watching the TV than go out.

For christs sake, c@t

You prance around this forum like some kind of psuedo intellectual condeming anything that is popular with the viewing public and rubbishing those who even dare to say anything remotely pro ITV.

You may condemn people for watching Pop Idol, and make sweeping statements about the people who watch it in some kind of an attempt to convince us you are somehow of a vastly superior intellect.  It doesn't wash with me, I will continue to watch programming that it is entertaining and that I enjoy.  This doesn't mean to say that every single programme on TV has to be like Panorama or Question Time, I don't feel the need to be culturally enriched by every programme I watch on TV.

I enjoy the TV I watch, some of it thought-provoking, some of it informative, some of it, dare I say, just to be entertained without having to think.

C@t and jason, I wouldn't want to go out for a pint with either of you two, for fear you would both bore me s h i t less.


(Edited by square eyes at 10:05 pm on Feb. 12, 2002)

Why is it that pro-BBC people think that when ITV beat BBC1 in the ratings it must be because people had gone out or just weren't watching TV or some pathetic excuse to try and hide the fact that they can't bear to think that more people actually wanted to watch ITv than BBC1?

Oh blub blub blub!

Maybe if you were to actually go out on a Saturday night and have a pint rather than sit in and watch Pop Idol and You've Been Framed and the monkey testcard you might actually be interesting enough to have a pint with in any case...

Jeez, some people. I am the first to admit I sit and rot my brain with ITV crap most nights for a while, but I don't go singing it from the rooftops when one of their programmes is rotting the brains of millions of others as well....

(Edited by jason at 10:30 pm on Feb. 12, 2002)

Well thats exactly where I was on Saturday night, out. How about you ?  Sat in your old mans arm chair, waiting for a Leeds continuity mistake, remeniscing about the good old days when Tyne Tees used to have in-vision continuity announcers.  



(Edited by square eyes at 10:36 pm on Feb. 12, 2002)

ITV beat BBC1 in the ratings and no way you can twist the facts can ever change that (I am not on ITVs side as I was watching BBC1, I'm just pointing out the facts that some people are findidng some way to twist to make it look like BBC are more popular but the people that like BBC1 just happened to be down the pub so that ITV got higher ratings- yeah right!)

aye you sure got me sussed se :rolleyes:

now go away and study your BARB charts, us grown ups have work tomorrow.

Right.

C@t, considering all the stories I've heard regarding your drinking sessions down the pub, your 'walks', and your various other nocturnal activities, I would be most surprised if you were actually in on a Saturday night to pass judgement on the programmes you made reference to.

To begin with, you made a factual error in your comment on Pop Idol being a 'one-off' - ITV1 has already commissioned a 'Celebrity' special, and Series 2 will go into production at a later date.

Although I did not watch Pop Idol, for the sheer fact that we are seeing too many of these audition programmes nowadays, you have absolutely no right to call the people who watch the show 'brain doners' with '1 second attention spans'. It was a lot of fun for many people in the nation, hence its terrific ratings success on Saturday night, and gave a lot of people a talking point.

Yes, I enjoy following current affairs, and reading broadsheets, but it is not essential to stay in that kind of mode twenty four hours a day. I still enjoy Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, which pulled in 11 million viewers on Sunday night, and although it may be 'dross' in your opinion, it is a very good show in mine.

If you really think that Saturday night television is that bad, and you are not going out - here's an idea - don't watch it.

Let people watch what they want to watch, don't criticise them for doing so, and let them be happy with their viewing. People can really do without figures like you being very, very snobbish.

Now, off you go, back to that dark corner in the park (or wherever it is you give your partners blowjobs or whatever).