[newsjunkie]

The irony as far as The Sun is concerned is one thing they're usually reliable for is insider TV news. Most of their genuine reporting, rather than clickbait journalism, turns out to be true. Just shows though if they're willing to blatantly lie about things that can so easily be proven to be untrue - and then double down on them - that they're willing to lie about anything to fit their narrative. Not sure what Midsomer Murders has done to deserve that treatment though.

Back to breakfast and the Katie Piper Breakfast Show starts this weekend across Saturdays and Sundays, with the Titchmarsh/James Martin repeats back beforehand. I don't suppose there are any figures out there of how these rate compared to the previous CITV content.

Katie Piper's show actually began last weekend.

Don't have the exact figures to hand, but the CITV block was getting less than 100k (often 50k) against an average of just over 200k on Saturday & Sunday just gone.

Don't quite understand why these shows are summer only (do ITV have an amount of new shows they have to commission for the breakfast licence?) but before the clocks change the ratings for that slot are often 300k+ (peaking at 500k). That's not far off what GMB achieves during the week.

[Brekkie]

OK, the justification is there then. I know these shows meet a quota of independent production - seems to be 44 hours a year which for whatever reason they believe is better done with shows Saturday and Sunday for 5-6 months rather than one hour a week. I used to think it was because CITV advertising was more valuable in the run up to Christmas but obviously that won't be the case anymore.

I guess the overall quota might be 52 hours a year but the other 8 hours might be made up by the competition slots, which are I believe independently produced by Andy Peter's company and even at just a couple of minutes a day would add up to make the time.

[JAS84]

2 minutes x 260 weekdays = 520 minutes = 8 and a half hours. It'll actually be slightly less due to periods off air (Christmas), but yeah, if the footage is different each day that'd be enough.

[RhysJR]

Bit of variation in the ITV 1 schedule tonight, with two half hour programmes in the 20:00 hour, and a 1h20' doccumentary at 21:00.

Nice to see some comedy on the main channel in primetime, even if it has been on ITV X for months and the subject of the programme is also on BBC One at the same time. A little awkward to push the news back to 22:20 though.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's the one... Must be run by the same company that owns the local paper.

In fact looking at it right now they have "iconic ITV show cancelled" as one of the headlines- referring to Midsomer of course. I wish there was a way to switch that damn banner off.

There was one the other day along the lines of “Corrie legend breaks his silence on why he is quitting the show”

The legend in question was Simon Barlow…

[Brekkie]

Vera is to end after 14 series as Brenda Blethyn quits. Not a huge surprise really - she was quite open in the interviews around the last series she couldn't do it much longer. No doubt another show of a similar ilk will fill the slot - they rate and sell well for ITV.

www.radiotimes.com 

Vera to end after 14th and final season | Radio Times
Brenda Blethyn will be hanging up the coat and hat with two final episodes.
  Source: www.radiotimes.com

[LondonViewer]

When David Leon returned, I thought they might have been lining him up for a spin off. I think it could have worked.

[XIII]

Vera is to end after 14 series as Brenda Blethyn quits. Not a huge surprise really - she was quite open in the interviews around the last series she couldn't do it much longer. No doubt another show of a similar ilk will fill the slot - they rate and sell well for ITV.

www.radiotimes.com 

She's also 78, she couldn't realistically play the role much longer.

[JAS84]

Yeah, in real life, wouldn't her character have retired a decade ago? You don't usually have 78 year old active detectives.

[RhysJR]

Vera is to end after 14 series as Brenda Blethyn quits. Not a huge surprise really - she was quite open in the interviews around the last series she couldn't do it much longer. No doubt another show of a similar ilk will fill the slot - they rate and sell well for ITV.

www.radiotimes.com 

Feel like the five colour ITV logo is going to be their version of the Gill Sans BBC logo, and will linger around far too long.

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