[Karl1986]

This is just for fun and nothing serious involved. Virgin 1 launches on Monday. As its launch night what do you think the ratings for the first four shows will be?

21:00 Criminal Minds
22:00 The Riches
23:15 Penis Envy
00:15 Dog the Bounty Hunter

Heres my prediction:

21:00 Criminal Minds 200,000
22:00 The Riches 328,000
23:15 Penis Envy 150,000
00:15 Dog the Bounty Hunter 70,000

[stehayn]

Originally Posted by Karl1986

This is just for fun and nothing serious involved. Virgin 1 launches on Monday. As its launch night what do you think the ratings for the first four shows will be?

21:00 Criminal Minds
22:00 The Riches
23:15 Penis Envy
00:15 Dog the Bounty Hunter

Heres my prediction:

21:00 Criminal Minds 200,000
22:00 The Riches 328,000
23:15 Penis Envy 150,000
00:15 Dog the Bounty Hunter 70,000

I think that will be pretty good for a new channel if it gets ratings like that on it's first night.

Here's mine, less optimistic.

Criminal Minds 90,000
The Riches 140-150,000 generous
Penis Envy 65-70,000
Dog Bounty Hunter 25,000

[tvtimes]

I think criminal minds-over 200,000 (just)
Th Riches may do very well. 250,000 is my estimate maybe a bit lower.

[robbie1123]

000,001 -----------> Location detected ----------> Virgin cable subscriber Mr R Branson

[GeorgeS]

Virgin 1 will struggle. Top shows might get 200k. Most will struggle to get 50k

[danny 17]

Dog the Bounty Hunter should get 1,000,000 based on quality. . However taking things into account I predict about 45,000 tops.

[daveyhairbear]

Originally Posted by GeorgeS

Virgin 1 will struggle. Top shows might get 200k. Most will struggle to get 50k

I think you are largely correct.

After the novelty wears off it'll be around 30,000 per programme on average, perhaps with top programmes achieving up to 80,000.

[DomesticGoddess]

It will take some time before Virgin 1 becomes more approachable. We have now gotten used to the likes of Sky One, E4, Living, UKTV Gold and ITV2, which cater for everything put together.

[Eamondo]

Originally Posted by robbie1123

000,001 -----------> Location detected ----------> Virgin cable subscriber Mr R Branson

LOL!

nah all the freeview fan boys are buzzing about this pile of junk so it shouldn't do too badly. Even though the best there entire selection of shows can do is 1 Emmy Nomination for the riches. which has had ok review but not earth shattering and there is a reason its on FX not Fox...... Its not good enough!

[leshay]

Originally Posted by Eamondo

LOL!

nah all the freeview fan boys are buzzing about this pile of junk so it shouldn't do too badly. Even though the best there entire selection of shows can do is 1 Emmy Nomination for the riches. which has had ok review but not earth shattering and there is a reason its on FX not Fox...... Its not good enough!

I am a Freeview viewer, and when I next rescan, will delete Virgin1. I had a look at the schedule, and 1 film and a few gadget shows would have been the only interest for me.

[mikw]

A channel will live or die based on the quality of it's shows - witness all the dissent for Sky One at the moment. In it's day it was rather good, now it's lazy and tired- living off past glories.

Virgin 1's starting lineup is nothing to write home about, perhaps it will do the opposite of Sky One - and get better.

If it does it has a potentially large audience due to it being on Freeview.

[Woody_Enfield]

FTN didn't exactly set the Freeview world alight and Virgin 1 is basically just a FTN rebrand with a couple of new shows.

[bananaman_007]

Exactly this is NOT the new channel people seam to think it is just a rebrand of FTN..

It think in the long run it will struggle to do better than FTN, the best shows have been on Bravo and Living meaning the vast majority of viewers will be Freeviewers just like FTN.

[Speedbird2006]

Why do you care!?

Wat too much time on your hands.

[omnidirectional]

Remember what they said about FTN?

"Watch out ITV because FTN is destined to become the biggest entertainment channel on Freeview. We're aiming for a 2.5% viewing share, which will make us the sixth biggest channel on Freeview," said channel controller Richard Woolfe, a former Granada entertainment chief.

... said Flextech understood the multichannel world much better than ITV or the BBC. "They're living in the dinosaur age, they haven't moved on. Our shows already beat a lot of their big budget offerings in multichannel homes and they haven't caught up with what viewers want - there's a famine of entertainment on British TV," he said.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcas...874713,00.html

With this is mind i'm not expecting much from Virgin 1. It might have a decent launch night, but after that I don't think it'll live up to the hype - just like FTN.

[Zen_Dog]

I don't have high hopes for Virgin 1 either really, because the motive for setting it up is negative - it's just to try and pacify customers who have lost Sky 1 and the other channels.
Unless Virgin 1 gets programmes that viewers are missing from Sky, most notably "Lost", then it will be a poor substitute.
And I don't really see Virgin being able to poach "Lost" and the like from Sky.
I just have bad vibes (maaaan) about the whole thing.
Or maybe I had too much wine last night. Whatever.

[Dancc]

Originally Posted by omnidirectional

Remember what they said about FTN?

"Watch out ITV because FTN is destined to become the biggest entertainment channel on Freeview. We're aiming for a 2.5% viewing share, which will make us the sixth biggest channel on Freeview," said channel controller Richard Woolfe, a former Granada entertainment chief.

Oh do keep up dear - Richard Woolfe is no longer at Virgin. He's now working for Sky One

Virgin 1 has a much better team behind it who seem genuinely passionate about the channel.

If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But IMO the amount of negativity towards the channel is extraordinary given that the lineup is much stronger than other recent channel launches - Five Life & Five US were huge disappointments for me, but they seem to be doing reasonably well in the ratings.

I suspect Virgin 1 will end up with a similar audience share to Five US.

First night ratings are difficult to predict, but I expect them to peak during The Riches

My predictions:

9pm - Criminal Minds (155,000)
10pm - The Riches (230,000)
11pm - Penis Envy (65,000)

[robbie1123]

Well having browsed the schedule for the next few weeks it seems that they contradict themselves.

Example is that Freeview is going to be their biggest audience reach however from 12midnight till around 3am they have poker rubbish on! being that the channel has restricted Freeview hours is this the best use of time? those with PVR could record shows. I think some of the programmes they have on during the day should repeat during the early hours.

Secondly they don't want to be like Sky One? Why did they buy Star Trek then?

Aside from the Riches there doesn't look to me to be any Stand Out programming, I honestly think that their freeview schedule should be different to the 24hr schedule.

Perhaps as the viewers drop away they will tinker with the schedule, Richard Branson said in a DS interview that he doesn't know much about programming? Is it me or does it feel like they have just slapped the Virgin tag on some product and they hope its enough? that's what they did with NTL after all

[omnidirectional]

Originally Posted by Dancc

Oh do keep up dear - Richard Woolfe is no longer at Virgin. He's now working for Sky One

I know that, dear, I was referring to what was said not who said it.

[Dancc]

Originally Posted by omnidirectional

I know that, dear, I was referring to what was said not who said it.

And my point was - it's no surprise that Richard Woolfe said that - the man is all talk and no action.

He also said Living would become the sixth most popular channel in the UK - that didn't come true either.

And you know what - I'm going to defend Ftn. It's launch lineup was pretty good. Jay Leno, Melrose Place, Bob & Margaret and Dilbert were all well worth a watch IMO. Sadly, it didn't pull in the viewers and as a consequence of that Flextech stopped putting in the effort and that's how we ended up with the mediocre version of Ftn we have today.

With Virgin 1, I'm expecting the opposite. A relatively low key launch perhaps, but soon building upon that with exciting new commissions for next year. The fact it's on all three of the major platforms will be the biggest drive for it's success, as will Virgin taking advantage of other platforms such as online and VOD. If it flops, Virgin will want to turn that around as they wouldn't want to risk alienating people against the Virgin brand.

[Dot Cotton]

0 0 0 0 0 0

[carl.waring]

Originally Posted by Dancc

With Virgin 1, I'm expecting the opposite. A relatively low key launch perhaps, but soon building upon that with exciting new commissions for next year.

Spot on. They evem say so themselves here. When is Sky One going to increase its UK-produced quota, and make some decent stuff at that? Sometime around when the devil goes ice-skating?

[robbie1123]

Originally Posted by carl.waring

Sometime around when the devil goes ice-skating?

Wondered who was going to be on Dacing On Ice With The Stars this year lol

[carl.waring]

LOL. I was trying to work that idea in somewhere. As usual, I just didn't think it through enough

[jimmya1]

Here's my prediction for the ratings on renaming of FTN day

21:00 Criminal Minds 20,000
22:00 The Riches 28,000
23:15 Penis Envy 10,000
00:15 Dog the Bounty Hunter 12,000