All articles by Stephen Price – Page 71
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RatingsSlow start for ITV dramas
The early autumn has revealed a difference in schedule strategy between BBC1 and ITV. BBC1 launched much of its current line-up in late summer, whereas ITV waited… waited… then sprang into action like a coiled cat with loads of new stuff as soon as August tipped into September.
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RatingsThe calm before the storm
With the BBC yet to bring out its Autumn big guns, ITV completes a clean sweep of the top 10
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RatingsBBC4 living la dolce vita
BBC4’s championing of the subtitled drama has been famously led by the dourly compelling ‘Scandi Noir’.
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RatingsAlibi cracks it with Rizzoli
This week saw a veritable smorgasboard of goings-on as young couples fell in love despite having never met, the staff of North Carolina’s Lizard Lick Towing & Recovery Company fended off bullets and fists, while in fiction, a detective and a doc chased down the baddies.
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RatingsBBC2 plays a Blinder
The Midlands might not necessarily be at the cutting edge of fashion, but as BBC2’s new drama showed this week, you wouldn’t want to be making too many flat cap and whippet gags back in 1920s Brum.
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RatingsBake Off still a hot property
You can tell when it’s autumn: the PSBs engage in a big Wednesday night tussle, with three shows hunting down similar audiences.
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RatingsJack’s back to buoy BBC3
I sometimes think most of my teachers were like Jack Whitehall in BBC3’s Bad Education.
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RatingsA double dose of Lemon aid
In my garden there is a young lemon tree. It’s very nice and until last week, it was threatening to deliver actual lemons, fooled into thinking it was living in lemon-growing territory like Italy, Greece or Florida.
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RatingsA good result for Sky Sports
Storage Hunters has found some space. Half the top 10, in fact, as a new series of those pesky cupboards and their contents landed on Dave.
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RatingsRound one to Strictly
X Factor loses the first Saturday night fight, but Sunday’s episode comes out on top overall
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RatingsFactual takes centre stage
With both BBC1 and ITV looking to strengthen their factual output, all eyes are on the genre. Stephen Price reports on how the broadcasters have performed so far this year
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RatingsIcing on cake for Bake Off
Maybe it’s because the news is so grim, but at 8pm on Tuesday nights people are eschewing the world of woe, perhaps delighted to fret instead about the state of strangers’ petit fours or Victoria sponges in a tent in the middle of a field; it’s as close to literally ...
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RatingsYou’ll never watch alone
The phrase ‘curate’s egg’ barely describes the cornucopia of this week’s review.
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Ratings1.2m lap up Lemon’s Juice
The Edinburgh Festival ended this week, with BBC3 celebrating the up and coming, while a juice and two Xtras returned to ITV2.
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NewsC5 takes no prisoners
Whenever a late-night repeat of Prisoner Cell Block H was moved, its ‘fans’ would mobilise – a warning for Channel 5’s new prison drama.
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RatingsMaking a song and dance
ITV spearheads autumn push with mass-appeal formats Stepping Out and The X Factor
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RatingsThe Mill goes out on top
This week had a certain fin de siècle about it as three dramas all ended on the same night, with mixed fortunes.
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RatingsChickens falls fowl of Trollied
One thing is for sure: 2014 is going to have one or two programmes about World War I dotted about the schedule, or possibly swarming all over it.
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RatingsBig day joy for BBC3’s Brides
Any bride would surely be elated with a half-time ceremony at Stoke City FC in front of 28,000 strangers.
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RatingsTop Boy fails to rule NY
The Great British Bake Off is back with a bang and rivals might be newly a-feared of Tuesday’s tented bun-meisters.