Ratings Review: BARB Week Ending 21st October 2007

It's difficult to keep finding stories in the publically released ratings from BARB every week, but some of the numbers prove interesting, not just the ones I call the weekly Hall Of Shame either.

Last week, I said that we would see the first ratings for Dave. And we do. But unfortunately, we only have the share and reach ratings, no ratings for individual programmes. But we can see that Dave benefited from the usual pre-launch publicity, and the controversy surrounding the branding itself, to earn itself a 1.1 share / 23.7 weekly reach. Over 11 million viewers tuned into the channel sometime during its first week. Dave may have also benefited from being added to Freeview. Dave certainly did seem to take viewers from other Freeview broadcasters, but other channels may have also lost out to Dave as well. We'll know more after a few weeks worth of ratings.

Dave made it into the top 10 digital channels this week.

01. ITV2 - 1.8 / 32.2
02. Sky Sports 1 - 1.3 / 12.5
03. ITV3 - 1.2 / 14.7
04. CBeebies - 1.2 / 10.9
05. Dave - 1.1 / 23.7
06. BBC3 - 1.0 / 26.3
07. E4 - 1.0 / 20.0
08. Sky One 1.0 / 16.2
09. Film 4 - 0.9 / 14.8
10. ITV4 - 0.8 / 19.9

On though to the weekly Hall Of Shame, which welcomes some new entrants and a returning entrant this week. Once again, these results are listed in no particular order...

Sky Travel Shop - 35,000
Sky Arts - 111,000
Anime Central - 74,000
Business Channel - 69,000
Community Channel - 149,000
Discovery +1.5 - 133,000
Diva TV - 124,000
Fashion TV - 197,000
Film 24 - 133,000
Fox News - 183,000
Golf Channel UK - 166,000
Legal TV - 140,000
Life One - 86,000
MusFlash - 73,000
MUTV - 66,000
Overseas Propety - 104,000
Prime TV - 135,000
Real Estate TV - 138,000
Rockworld TV - 72,000
Setanta Golf - 113,000
Simply TV - 60,000
The Baby Channel - 5,000
The Travel Channel - 179,000
TWC Fight - 188,000
Wedding TV - 95,000
Wedding TV +1 - 110,000
Xleague.TV - 101,000

You gotta feel sorry for The Baby Channel. First week as the lowest rated channel, and you seriously couldn't get a lower rated week. Just 5,000 viewers across the entire 7 day period. That means almost all of the schedule, was zero rated.

And we welcome Fox News Channel to the Hall Of Shame with their lowest ratings ever in the UK. We also welcome Discovery Channel +1.5 to the Hall Of Shame too. It seems that as far as timeshift channels go, +1.5 hours doesn't seem to work too well.

News Roundup: Tuesday 30th October 2007

Al Jazeera: Israel threatens to invade Gaza.

BBC News: 1,000,000 + people have backed comic Stephen Colbert's fake presidential bid.

CBN News: US anti-child porn law is the focus of a free speech case.

EuroNews: French families insist they were not buying Darfur kids.

Independent Television News: An economic research group predicts that UK house prices will fall by about 6% during 2008.

And Finally...

Ananova: A group of german grannies have turned their knitting circle into a company selling kinky knitwear!!!

Leather skirts making a decent comeback?

Fashionising has noted that Ashley Olsen (the second half of Mary-Kate and Ashley) has been spotted out wearing a leather skirt, and making it look good. The post's writer comments that he hasn't seen a leather skirt worn well for years.

Quite honestly, I'm not sure what he's talking about. Leather clothes always look good in my book. Joanna Rice, who I previously blogged about, was known as "The Weather In Leather" and always managed tomake leather look good.

But then I'm biased. I like leather clothes in general, which I can trace back to seeing Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg in leather catsuits for black and white episodes of The Avengers. Add to that the red leather dress that Emma Samms wore in an episode of Dynasty and you could say I was in love with leather.

One of these days, perhaps I should committ to the blog my "style rules" as I call them. They're not rules as such, but they are observations of things I have seen over the years that I like.

News Roundup: Monday 29th Ocotber 2007

Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The Coalition is gaining ground on Labour according the latest poll in The Australian.

Comment: I have a poll of my own here too, albeit somewhat less scientific. Don't forget to add your vote. You can vote on the poll anytime before November 24th.

Al Jazeera: Somalia's Prime Minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, has resigned.

NY1: New York's Governor Eliot Spitzer is under fire over his driver's licencing plan.

Comment: CNN's Lou Dobbs notably has taken aim at Spitzer. The Quick Vote on his main show page is about the story and he also has a list of those who oppose the Governor's plan, under the title "Great Americans"! Hmm, methinks Dobbs is showing some bias here.

CNN Politics: FEMA's Public Affairs Director will not be taking up his new job as Head of PR for the Director of National Intelligence in the wake of the fake news conference last week.

ESPN: Boston sweep Colorado to win World Series for second time in 4 years.

Comment: Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox. It was a richly deserved victory. But let us not forget, the Colorado Rockies are champions too. They are the National League Champions, and thoroughly deserved their place at the big game.

France 24: Shilpa Shetty has been so busy since winning Celebrity Big Brother, including currently starring in a musical in Berlin, that she hasn't found the time to start a family.

Comment: Shilpa, I'm available, and I would consider it an honour to have a family with you.

And Finally...

Ananova: A thief has accepted an unusual invitation - they stole a book from a modern art exhibition called "Steal This Book"!!!

Comment: This was a real book, written by Abbie Hoffman and published in 1970. I guess the thief took the title a little too literary-ly!!!

More Than Just A Viewpoint

If you are a regular visitor to this blog, you will notice that I am adding more and more content to the page, alongside the blog. The idea being that I want Viewpoint to be more than just a blog, and to provide content that is truly more than just the usual posts.

Rest assured, I will keep looking for good content to add to the blog and the site.

News Roundup: Saturday 27th October 2007

Later than usual, but here we go...

Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Australian Prime Minister John Howard remians silent on reports that his Environment Minister leaked a story about urging the Federal Cabinet to ratify Kyoto.

BBC News: Buckingham Palace has refused to confirm that a Royal was the subject of a blackmail attempt.

National Public Radio: The Sudanese Government has declared a unilateral ceasefire in Darfur.

CBS News: The National Football League arrives in London for its first regular season game outside North America.

ESPN Soccernet: The complete list of results and scores from ALL of Saturday's Football.

The Weird World of News... In Triplicate!

I have three very weird news stories that I've found at United Press International.

1. A man who admitted having sex with a bicycle (yes, that's right, a bicycle!!!) in a Scottish hotel has been placed on the sex offenders register.

First of all, how the hell do you have sexual intercourse with a bicycle? Second, why is this man on the sex offenders register? Surely there's a nice padded rubber room somehwere that has this man's name on it.

2. British government jobcentres are carrying a job advert for a woman to strip on an internet site. Not surpisingly, the Daily Mail has it's usual conservative spin on it, condeming it by proxy. But this from a paper that blatantly shows provocative poses of Teri Hatcher from an episode of Desperate Housewives that has yet to air in the UK. Another case of do as I say not as I do.

3. Some Zimbabwean officials are disappointed to learn that you can't produce refined diesel by striking a rock with a stick!

The daftest thing about this story is that any government official believed her story long enough to give her money!!!

Fox Business Anchor or Porn Star??? They Question, You Decide.

TV Newser pointed me to this fun little quiz on Radar Online seeing if you can tell your business briefs from your... well, you know...

My result? 6 out of 10, which is not bad, considering I can't get Fox Business in the UK yet.

News Roundup: Friday 26th October 2007

Al Jazeera: An official in the US government responsible for diplomatic security has resigned in the wake of the Blackwater scandal.

Fox News: A female high school teacher is accused of having sex with a 17 year old male student.

Comment: Expect this story to be a headliner on Fox News Channel and particularly The O'Reilly Factor. Bill O'Reilly has made this kind of story almost a staple diet of his programme. It will probably be accompanied by B roll footage of other teachers who have been similarly accused, in suggestive footage and poses.

Agence France-Presse: Astronomers have discovered hundreds of expanding "supermassive" black holes in galaxies billions of light years from Earth.

Independent Television News: A "female Walter Mitty" who stole £2million from company accounts has been jailed.

NHK World: Japan plans to put a probe on the moon by 2015.

RTE News: The Irish Supreme Court has ruled that life sentences may be imposed in rape cases, even if there is a guilty plea.

And Finally...

United Press International: A ghoulish groom and a ghastly bride were married by the Grim Reaper in a Cleveland haunted house!

Comment: Gives new meaning to "til death do us part"!!!

US Cable News Numbers: Tuesday 23rd October 2007

Tuesday's numbers were helped overall by the California Wildfires coverage, and by the premiere of CNN's Planet in Peril documentary.

Congratulations have to go to Keith Olbermann who for the first time ever on MSNBC, managed to score over 1 million viewers, both on Live and Live +SD numbers. But Keith was beaten in third place, legit style, by an early airing for Anderson Cooper 360, who managed over 1.3 million. Anderson Cooper was reporting live from Southern California at the scene of the wildfires.

Bill O'Reilly, pulled out a massive 2.77 million viewers, another spectacular performance for him,the second in relatively quick succession.

In the demo, O'Reilly was FNC's only success on the night, winning the 8pm hour. CNN won the demo for all the other hours. Even looking at CNNs total viewers numbers, they have 1 million viewers or more for every hour from 5pm to midnight, as did Fox News Channel.

Overall, a great night for Cable News. CNN have to be proud of their performance, winning Total Day demo and Prime Time demo, plus the fact tha Planet In Peril scored over 1.5 million total viewers and 532,000 in the key demo. Fox News Channel have to be pleased that they held up their numbers despite some extra tough competition out there, and MSNBC have to be pleased that they gained viewers as well, as well a record viewership for Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

It seems that more viewers came to Cable News that night, and everybody gained.

News Roundup: Thursday 25 October 2007

Al Jazeera: Opposition Leader Aung Sun Suu Kyi has met a government official for talks.

BBC News: The parents of Madeline McCann have relased a sketch of the man they suspect of kidnapping their daughter.

CBC News: An army reservist from Nova Scotia will face military trial over the shooting death of a colleague in Afghanistan earlier this year.

CBN News: The US House of Representatives is to vote on a revised version of the S-CHIP bill that President Bush vetoed earlier this month.

KNBC - Los Angeles: Firefighters have attacked the wildfires buring in Southern California amind calm conditions.

Cable News Network: Argentina's First Lady has said she doesn't want to be compared to Hillary Clinton or Eva Peron.

And Finally...

BBC News: Australian coal miners are being given lessons in foreplay, and the menopause... in an attempt to boost productivity!

Comment: Hmmm, I wonder what kind of productivity they are actually trying to boost...

Ratings Review: RAJAR Quarter 3 2007

The new set of RAJARs for June to September 2007 are out, and there are many interesting things to report.

First to the BBC Local Radio stations, and their top 10 by reach percentage...

01. BBC Radio Jersey - 45%
02. BBC Radio Cornwall - 36%
03. BBC Radio Guernsey - 35%
04. BBC Radio Cumbria - 33%
05. BBC Radio Stoke - 32%
06. BBC Radio Humberside - 30%
07. BBC Hereford & Worcester - 29%
08. BBC Radio Suffolk - 27%

and then we have a 4-way tie

09=. BBC Radio Derby - 25%
09=. BBC Radio Devon - 25%
09=. BBC Radio Norfolk - 25%
09=. BBC Radio Shropshire - 25%

BBC Radio Cornwall's performance is a real standout in that list, despite having a lot of competition in the area, with Pirate FM, Atlantic FM, and on DAB, Plymouth Sound as well, broadcasting across the county of Cornwall, and despite being 2% down on the last quarter.

Pirate FM have done well this quarter with 31%, up 1% on the last quarter. But the local story in Cornwall is Atlantic FM, who are up 3% on the quarter, despite still being in third place overall.

Nearby Plymouth Sound are down 2% on the quarter to 29% reach. BBC Radio Devon are holding steady at about 25%. Gemini FM are down 1% to 34%, whilst Lantern FM are down 2% at 39% reach.

Orchard FM have managed their own standout performance, gaining an extra 3% to 39% reach. South Hams Radio is down 1% at 14%.

Meanwhile, the newly merged Classic Gold and Capital Gold brand, known only as Gold, is floundering badly. Gold Plymouth is down 1% to 3% in percentage terms, but that represents losing about 25% of their audience, from a reach of 13,000 listeners to a reach of just 9,000. The audience for the 1152 AM frequency has collapsed since the local Plymouth Sound AM was closed and replaced with the semi national Classic Gold Plymouth, as it was. Perhaps OFCOM will do well to remember this when the Plymouth AM licence comes up for renewal. The licence is due to expire at the end of 2015.

However, the Exeter & Torbay version is a bit of a standout gaining 2% to 5%. An extra 7,000 listeners for the AM station which partners Gemini FM.

It's a little trickier to discern the top perfomers in local commercial radio,due to the sheer number of stations but here we go...

01. Radio Borders - 54%
02. Radio Pembrokeshire - 53%
03=. Manx Radio - 52%
03=. Channel 103 FM - 52%
05. Island FM 104.7 - 49%
06. Moray Firth Radio - 47%
07. West Sound - 45%
08. Spire FM - 44%
09. Yorkshire Coast Radio 42%
10. C. F. M. Radio - 41%

Notable there is that the two locals for the Channel Islands, Channel 103 FM and Island FM, both manage to outscore their BBC counterparts, and as well, between BBC Radios Geurnsey and Jersey, Channel 103 and Island FM, they manage to almost completely dominate radio listneing in the Channel Islands. The national stations between them don't get much of a look in.

Also notable there is Manx Radio which is unconnected to the ILR network, and began broadcasting on 29 June 1964, 9 years before ILR began and 3 years before any BBC Local Radio stations. 1964 was the height of the pirate radio revolution in Britain. Radio Caroline had begun broadcasting just 3 months earlier on 28th March and Radio Atlanta had lanuched on 12 May. At the time of Manx Radio's launch, Radio Atlanta was days away from closure and eventual merger with Radio Caroline to become Caroline South.

On the national front, BBC Radio 2 continues to be the most popular national station with just over 13 million listeners. Radio 1 is next with around 10.5 million listeners and third is BBC Radio 4 with just over 9.25 million listeners.

Next comes the most popular national commercial radio station, Classic FM with over 5.8 million listeners. Radio Five Live is just behind them with just under 5.5 million listeners.

Of the pseudo-national commercial networks, the top performers continue to outperform the national stations on AM and Digital, TalkSport and Virgin Radio. Magic is the best performing network with 3.43 million listeners, followed closely by Heart with just under 3.33 million listeners. Kiss is also a top performer with just under 3.1 million listeners, as is Galaxy's network with 2.6 million listeners.

By comparison, Virgin have around 2.47 million listeners and TalkSport, a mere 2.31 million.

Comparing very unfavourably in the network stakes is Gold. I highlighted the Plymouth station as a particular failure of the brand, but as a whole, the network is not much better. The network of stations on AM and DAB gets just under 1.5 million listners, which is down from the around 1.58 million listeners of the combined Capital and Classic Gold networks last quarter. When you think that this includes station in high population areas such as London, Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester, this performance comes across as doubly poor!

News Roundup: Wednesday 24th October 2007

KNX NewsRadio 1070, Los Angeles: FBI agents have raided a home in Orange County in connection with an arson investigation into one of the wildfires.

Press TV: At least 23 people have been killed in a bus explosion in a northern district of Mogadishu.

Channel News Asia: Myanmar/Burma pro-democracy protestors have been staging protests in front of Chinese Embassies around the world on Wednesday to mark 12 years of detention for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Coalition MPs are playing down fears that a likely interest rate rise in Australia next month will spell electoral doom for the party.

RTE News: A Chinese lunar orbiter, named after a legendary goddess who flew to the Moon and never returned, has successfully launched from the Sichuan province.

Yahoo! News UK: Gerry McCann, father of missing Madeline McCann, has angrily denied claims that he and Kate drugged their children.

And Finally...

BBC Bristol: A man used a false identity to get a job a Bristol Magistrates Court, despite having 129 convictions!

Comment: The daft thing was, he held down the job for a whole 17 months!!! You'd think with 129 convictions, someone there would have recognised him!!! He must have been up before magistrates there many times!

Ratings Review: BARB Week Ending 14th October 2007

Well, the main story in the ratings this week, seems to be one of recovery for Sky One. For the second time in three weeks, the channel has increased its share of viewing, this time going up to 1.2 share / 16.9 weekly reach, which equates to a total of just over 8 million viewers over the course of the week. Despite that, that is still about half a million less viewers than Sky Three, despite it having a lower share (0.7 / 18.0).

However, on the positive side for Sky One is the fact that despite the fact that The Simpsons still had 6 of the Top 10 highest rated programmes, the Top 5 were not dominated by any one show. Noel Edmonds' new quiz show for Sky One, Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old? has for the second week in a row come in at Number 2 in the top 10, with an audience over 600,000. Add to that episodes of Ross Kemp On Gangs, Stargate Atlantis and Prison Break all scoring over the half a million mark, and you'll see that Sky One has an improving stable of programmes. There's still work to be done, but there is a good foundation forming.

It's unfortunate that a lot of the news channels ratings information is not made publically available. In terms of share of viewing and weekly reach, we have ratings for Sky News, BBC News 24 and Fox News, but for individual programmes, only data for Sky News is publically available. For Sky News, their top rated bulletin was a Sunday edition of Sky News at Seven, which just made it over the 100,000 mark! Just out of interest, I wonder just how low the ratings are for Fox News Channel over here. I know they reached only 216,000 viewers this week, but I wonder how that pans out for individual shows. It's kinda disappointing that BBC News 24 don't have their indivdual show ratings released. I'd love to do what Inside Cable News and TV Newser do for US cable news channels and release the hour by hour comparison for primetime. That would be truly interesting information. Unfortunately, I think I'd have to be a subscriber to get that info, and that means paying thousands of pounds a year to get it.

There's a whole load of news channels that do not subscribe to BARB and therefore do not have ratings information collected for them by BARB. CNNI, CNBC Europe, Bloomberg UK, EuroNews, France 24, Al Jazeera English, NDTV 24x7 and others do not appear on the list of channels in the BARB ratings list, so unfortunately, we have no idea just how many people watch those channels at all.

Onto the timeshift channels, and let's list the Top 5 again.

E4 +1 - 0.6 / 13.6
Channel 4 +1 - 0.5 / 14.5
ITV2 +1 - 0.4 / 9.5
Living TV+1 - 0.4 / 8.0
UKTV Gold +1 - 0.3 / 9.1

Next, to the weekly Hall Of Shame...

Sky Travel Shop - 73,000
Anime Central - 88,000
Business Channel - 40,000
Community Channel - 108,000
Diva TV - 156,000
Fashion TV - 169,000
Golf Channel UK - 99,000
Legal TV - 121,000
LIfe One - 121,000
MusFlash - 60,000
MUTV - 74,000
Overseas Property TV - 41,000
Performance Channel - 195,000
Real Estate TV - 128,000
Rockworld TV - 41,000
Setanta Golf - 134,000
Simply TV - 40,000
The Baby Channel - 28,000
The Travel Channel - 191,000
The Travel Channel +1 - 180,000
Wedding TV - 161,000
Wedding TV +1 - 128,000
Xleague.TV - 96,000

And finally for this week's ratings, a heads up for next week, when we get the first set of ratings for Dave, the rebranded UKTV G2. The final week's ratings for G2 looked like this. 0.5 share / 11.9 weekly reach, which equates to over 5.6 million viewers. The timeshift version had a 0.1 / 2.6, which equated to just over 1.25 million viewers. Their last week's top 10 programmes looked like this...

1	TOP GEAR (Thu 2001)	190
2	BILLY CONNOLLY'S WORLD TOUR OF (Sun 2220)	185
3	QI (Mon 2100)	177
4	TOP GEAR (Tue 2000)	169
5	DRAGONS' DEN (Thu 2100)	150
6	BILLY CONNOLLY'S WORLD TOUR OF (Sun 2140)	148
7	BILLY CONNOLLY'S WORLD TOUR OF (Sun 2300)	143
8	BILLY CONNOLLY'S WORLD TOUR OF (Sat 2220)	137
9	THE CATHERINE TATE SHOW (Fri 2100)	131
10	TOP GEAR (Tue 1900)	116

So, just how much better or worse will Dave do? Answers next week...

Reporting on the wildfires turns personal

I've been following KCBS TV's (CBS2) breaking news coverage of the Southern California wildfires online and I've seen that one of their San Diego colleagues had the unpleasant duty of reporting the destruction of his own home in those wildifres.

Fortunately, everybody had gotten out, no pets were in the house, so everybody was fine, but he had lived in that house for 25 years! My thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family for a positive resolution.

News Roundup: Tuesday 23rd October 2007

1010 WINS: Long Island store clerk fights off would-be robber with an axe!

WBZ NewsRadio 1030: Tickets for the World Series between Boston Red Sox and Colorado Rockies are a hot commodity!

CBS 2 / KCAL 9 - Los Angeles: Over 1000 homes lost to Southern California wildfires. Complete coverage including Live News Video.

CNN.com: The Space Shuttle Discovery blasted off at 11.38 am ET, headed to the International Space Station.

Deutsche Welle: The European Union is planning a "blue card" work visa programme, similar to the US "green card" system.

Yahoo! 7 News Australia: A "white powder" has been found at Parliament House in Canberra.

And Finally...

Yahoo! News US: An 81-year old German woman took a short cut, going the wrong way down the Autobahn - at a pedestrian 4 miles an hour in a wheelchair!

News Roundup: Monday 22nd October 2007

MSNBC: Over 250,000 people are fleeing from a string of fires in Southern California.

France 24: The far right Swiss People's Party makes gains in Swiss general election.

WTOP News: Police in maryland believe they've found the body of a woman missing since 1996.

BBC Dorset: Government figures have revealed that the number of highest risk registered sex offenders dropped by over a third in Dorset.

CTV News: A UNHR Commissioner has called a vote by Canada against a UN declaration of Aboriginal Rights "astonishing".

NDTV India: A special session of parliament may be called over the continued wrangling over an Indo-US nuclear deal.

And Finally...

BBC News: New York is releasing 700,000 ladybirds in two housing complexes, as a pest control measure!

NBC Nightly News: New Studio

As an interested news listener and viewer, I watched this first edition of NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams from the rebuilt NBC News World Headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, with more than the usual degree of interest.

Like many othersI had seen the preview images released on various blogs, but basically, I didn't have a clue how the set would look on screen. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the things I saw.

In some ways, the new anchor desk is unique, being L-shaped. This gives you two views of the anchor desk, one with a giant screen as a backdrop, not unlike ABC News, and the other has the newsroom as a backdrop, which is somewhat reminiscent of many 24 hour news channels around the world.

The fact that it reminds me of so many studios in varying ways, rather than any one particular studio, highlights the fact that rather than trying to deliberately copy any other studio, they have tried to do something different, but with elements that are familiar to everyone.

So, do I think the studio looks good? Oh yes, very definitely. They've managed to achieve something that looks different, stylish, practical, reminiscent and distinctive, whilst avoiding being copycat. They've also managed to avoid trying to look too modern, whilst also avoiding looking too staid. It's a difficult balancing act to pull off, but they have managed it, somehow.

Personally, I can't wait for the usual pro-FOX brigade of comment contributors to Inside Cable News to put their usual pro-FOX / anti liberal media spin on this studio. Granted, it's not a studio you would expect to see a FOX News programme, it's too stylish and classy for that. Fox News studios tend to be a bit more in your face than other news studios. This NBC Nightly News studio is almost understated, which actually helps to take the attention off the studio set and onto the stories themselves.

I would give this 9 out of 10.

News Roundup: Sunday 21st October 2007

I've brought back something I trialled earlier this year. What I do in these "News Roundup" posts is highlight stories that are truly important, especially those which haven't recieved as much news media attention as perhaps they should. Also I highlight occasional stories that are just quirky and fun, and worth the attention.

With that in mind, here are my selections for the day, not necessarily in order of importance...

Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Australian PM John Howard announced plans for climate change fund during leaders debate. ABC News has a page on the debate, plus their election site.

Al-Jazeera English: A Republican has become the first Indian-American to be elected Governor of a US state.

CBC News: Hollywood writers have voted overwhelmingly for strike action if their union cannot strike a new deal with producers.

Fox News: When the Space Shuttle Discovery launches Tuesday, a woman commander of the shuttle will go to the International Space Station to be met by a woman commander there, the first time this has ever happened.

RTE News: Talks between the EU and Iran on Iran's nuclear programme will go ahead despite the resignation Iran's lead negotiator.

Press TV: US military massacres 49 civilians in Sadr City.

And Finally...

United Press International: Even though they may not discuss it with their doctors, a new survey indicates US seniors are still seeking sex into their sixties and seventies!

Ratings Review: BARB Week Ending 07 October 2007

A bit later than usual this week, because there are less obvious stories this week.

The main one however, is Virgin 1. In it's first week of operation, V1 manages a credible 0.5 share / 13.8 weekly reach. This equates to just over 6.5 million viewers across the week. Ther timeshift version manages a 0.1 / 4.3, which is just over 2 million viewers across the week.

Compare this to FTN's final week numbers which were 0.2 / 6.2, which is just under 3 million viewers across the week, plus a negligable share and 1.6 weekly reach, which is 759,000 viewers across the week, and you can see that initial indications for Virgin 1 look promising. More viewers in general have turned to the effectively rebranded FTN channel.

This does look like the first shots being fired in a new battle between Sky and Virgin Media, and the battleground could well be Freeview, as I mentioned previously in a post here at the MediaBlog about a month ago.

One interesting note this week on Timeshift channels. Just out of interest, here are the top 5.

E4 +1 - 0.6 / 13.3
Channel 4 +1 - 0.5 / 14.9
UKTV Gold +1 - 0.4 / 9.2
Living +1 - 0.4 / 7.9
ITV2 +1 - 0.3 / 8.8

It is very interesting to note that E4 has the most timeshift viewers, more than the most popular digital channel, ITV2.

Now, to the "Hall Of Shame", once again, in no particular order...

Sky Travel Shop - 50,000
Anime Central - 82,000
Business Channel - 79,000
Community Channel - 106,000
Diva TV - 106,000
Fashion TV - 122,000
Film 24 - 130,000
Golf Channel - 153,000
Hollywood TV - 185,000
Legal TV - 140,000
Life One - 184,000
MusFlash - 51,000
MUTV - 45,000
Overseas Property - 69,000
Performance Channel - 162,000
Real Estate TV - 175,000
Rockworld TV - 70,000
Setanta Golf - 122,000
Simply TV - 33,000
The Baby Channel - 81,000
The Travel Channel +1 - 196,000
Wedding TV - 124,000
Wedding TV +1 - 123,000
XLeague.TV - 95,000

The interesting thing to note is that Baby TV, which was on the list last week, has come off the publically released list this week. Why I don't know, but when channels choose not to release ratings info, it's a sure fire sign of trouble. Baby TV announced on 8th October 2007 that Fox International Channels has acquired a "...major stake..." in the channel.

Newly launched Diva TV, from the team behind The Hallmark Channel, is new to the list, with a paltry 106,000 viewers. Despite airing programmes like The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Late Show with David Letterman, all the channel has so far managed to succeed in doing is pull in one of the lowest rated launches ever in the history of television. They say they are "...sassy, sexy and totally seductive...", whilst in reality they are nothing of the sort.

Open Thread - Week Commencing 21st October 2007

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks!

Well, I've been looking around blogs for quite some time now, and I've noticed that there is a common theme between a lot of them, they use Open Threads to encourage readers to contribute to the blog.

So, I open the floor to you on this thread. It is here for your comments and thoughts on anything in the news and media this week.

Feel free as well to comment on any of the other posts I have made on the blog, I welcome your comments.

So, over to you...

Breaking News: LIberal Democrat Leader Sir Menzies Campbell to resign

Both BBC News 24 and Sky News are reporting that Sir Menzies Campbell, the leader of the UK's Liberal Democrats is to resign. An announcement is due shortly at 6.30pm UK. BBC News 24 is available to watch online, so there will be coverage available.

Denise Van Outen - Hot Lesbian for "Rent"

Denise Van Outen is paying the 'Rent' by playing a sex mad lesbian in a new version of the musical at the Duke Of York Theatre in the West End Of London.

This Is London and the Daily Mail have pictures of Denise in costume looking extraordinarily sexy and hot. It's even drawn the attention of Bootmaster Teri at Booted Up, and news has even spread to India, via the website of news magazine Top News, in their "Light Reading" section.

At the moment, bookings are being taken until 5th April 2008. I'd love to go, but at £30 a ticket, I think my own 'rent' comes first, unfortunately.

The Menagerie on the Big Screen!

For one night only in selected US and Canadian locations, the only two part episode from the orignal series of Star Trek, The Menagerie, comes to cinemas for a "limited engagement" on November 13th.

I'd like to think they would release this in the UK and Ireland too, maybe at a later date, but for now, click here to see which US locations have the showing, and keep checking back there to find out which Canadian locations will have it too.

Ratings Review: BARB Week Ending 30th September 2007

Well, we have some very interesting and unusual news from the latest publically released ratings figures from BARB.

It was during this week that ITV2 premiered The Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, a series that seemingly is not going to air on ITV1 for a while yet. At the moment, this commission seems to be exclusive to ITV2. Everybody wondered how high or low the ratings would be. Now, we can reveal all...

1,997,000 viewers.

Just 3,000 shy of the 2 million mark.

Not surprisingly, this, along with another million plus rating for an X-Factor episode, saw ITV2 gain a 2.2 share / 33.1 reach for the week. Huge numbers.

In other ratings news, Sky One is back above the 1% share mark with a 1.1 / 16.3. Decent numbers for the channel, and a marked improvement on the recent downward trend. IT was helped by the fact that the top 3 shows on the channel all scored over half a million, with a new episode of The Simpsons scoring 750,000. And for a change, the new Prison Break season scored in the top 10 finally, coming in at Number 2. Other than that and Premier League All Stars at Number 9, every other spot is taken by The Simpsons. Improvement, yes, but still, a long way to go, in order for Sky One to reclaim the top spot in digital TV.

Time for the regular "Hall Of Shame". This week, the channels that have performed the worst, are, in no particular order...

Sky Travel Shop - 93,000
Sky Arts - 135,000
Anime Central - 123,000
Baby TV - 157,000
Business Channel - 65,000
Community Channel - 146,000
Film 24 - 76,000
Golf Channel - 167,000
Legal TV - 162,000
Life One - 114,000
MusFlash - 29,000
MUTV - 93,000
Overseas Property TV - 81,000
Rockworld TV - 85,000
Setanta Golf - 166,000
Simply TV - 28,000
The Baby Channel - 52,000
The Travel Channel - 190,000
The Travel Channel +1 - 142,000
Wedding TV - 154,000
Wedding TV +1 - 156,000
XLeague.TV - 106,000

No surprise, yet again, Simply TV, simply is the bottom rung of the televisual ladder.

Not that the likes of Wedding TV have any real cause for celebration. It says a lot when your timeshift channel does better than the main channel.

And finally, it has to be said that the first two weeks of Nuts TV have been spectacularly low, even though they have managed to avoid entry into the Hall Of Shame, so far. 298,000 and 377,000 viewers respectively, are not great numbers for a channel that broadcasts on Freeview. Perhaps Turner Broadcasting, who surprise suprise, are the registered owners of Nuts TV, should be looking for other options.

No improvement in UEFA Champions League radio coverage saga.

Yesterday, I reported on the shameful state of affairs in UEFA Champions League coverage on radio. How Five Live and Talksport both covered the Manchester United match yesterday, despite the fact there were 3 British teams in action.

Today, it's no better. Five Live is covering the Valencia vs Chelsea match, and so is TalkSport. Once again, BOTH competing sports radio stations are airing the SAME match, with different commentators. WHY?

Sky TV viewers have a choice. Sky Sports 2 is showing Liverpool vs Marseille, Sky Sports Extra is showing Valencia vs Chelsea whilst Sky One has coverage of Celtic vs AC Milan. All three matches are being shown, and Five Live have the option of airing another match on FiveLive Sports Extra, but that channel is off air tonight.

Two stations covering the same match is not extending choice. TalkSport made a lot of noisde about being allowed to cover UEFA Champions League and other events where the rights were held by the EBU, which it considered a cartel.

TalkSport, you were not allowed your victory simply so you could squander it by covering the SAME match the BBC are covering.

This truly is a shameful state of affairs!

Seatlle woman says no to $1 million!

United Press International are reporting a 86 year old Seattle woman has turned down an offer of $1 million on her propertyand is now surrounded by a construction site for a new development. She's philosophical about the construction of a new retail complex and parking garage going on around her. She says if it gets too noisy, she turns up her TV or plays opera recordings!

I'm going to see if I can find any more on this story from the local Seattle media. This one will be interesting to follow.

Mother uses her kids to help her steal!

United Press International reports that Alberqueue Police have accused a mother of using her kids to steal stuff from a Wal-Mart there.

As Robin said in "The Joker Goes To School / He Meets His Match, The Grisley Ghoul", Holy contributing to the deliquency of Minors!

UEFA Champions League coverage on radio. Why the same match?

Radio is my usual home for news, sport and music, although I watch TV news and ues the web too. Tonight, 3 British teams were involved in UEFA Champions League action. Television had them all covered. Manchester United vs Roma was on ITV1, Steaua Bucharest vs Arsenal was on ITV4, whilst Rangers vs Lyon was on Sky Sports 2.

Radio did not serve the listeneing public nearly as well. BBC Radio 5 Live had the Manchester United vs Roma match, as did TalkSport. Five Live Sports Extra was supposed to be on the air covering a Coca Cola Championship match, but was off air when I checked. TalkSport could have covered the Arsenal match, rather than Manchester United, and instead of a Championship match, perhaps 5 Live Sports Extra should have aired coverage of Rangers vs Lyon.

In this case, the poor radio listener had no choice about which match to listen to. Only 1 was available. Come on BBC and TalkSport. You CAN do better than this.

I'll be noting what you guys will be covering tomorrow. 3 more British teams will be in action tomorrow night. Celtic will be hosting AC Milan. Liverpool will be hosting Marseille whilst Chelsea are away at Valencia. After tonight's shameful performance, I don't hold much hope for tomorrow night. Which one of those three will get covered by both Five Live and Talksport?

Useful tips for defending yourself against the Falafel Guy!

On yesterday's MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olbermann, as the number 3 story, was a selection of tips about how do defend yourself against a fatwa from your friend and mine, the awful falafel! Crooks and Liars has the story.

I love this. This is so damned funny. I have taken the tips from this feature and incorporated it into my "Anti-Biased News Defence Strategy". I already have my loofah, so I can challenge Falafel Guy to a duel if needs be!

And yes, I do expect Fox Security or one of Bill O'Reilly's producers on my doorstep sometime soon!!!