What laughable rot. That was a perfect slice of entertainment pie. The show is better and more inventive than ever. The last two weeks have been fantastic, no wonder the ratings for this period have been so terrific.

More of these please Dond!!

Interesting comment on the ratings - compared to the corresponding week last year, DOND's viewing figures are significantly down. The latest available week's Mon-Fri average is 2.13m compared to 3.21m for the corresponding week last year. That's a 33% drop with no seasonal factors involved.

Hard to determine for sure whether that's due to viewers having had enough of the show or just increased competition - I have heard suggestions that ITV dropping children's programmes and putting some popular dramas up against it in the late afternoon slot could be having an effect. Weakest Link on BBC2 is always an interesting ratings comparison with DOND, and that's also taken a big hit compared to a year ago.

Last year's figures aren't relevant because it's not an annual event. It's daily and so the figures are expected to decline naturally. The figures for last week were well up on the average for June July and October averaging about 27% share (2.5 million) with three shows peaking well over 3 million. That hasn't happened for six months.

Year-on-year is the only meaningful comparison. TV viewing is always a lot lower in the summer than in the autumn/winter, so you can't compare those figures and come up with an overall trend. It's like claiming the world is getting colder because October had a lower average temperature than September...

Respectfully, that simply isn't true. And it certainly isn't the way that advertisers, marketeers or industry professionals make their judgements about which shows are successful.

A daily show is not and never will be judged on a yearly comparison. If it it judged at all purely on a figures basis then it is judged on it's share. Deal wins it's slot every single day.

The point I was making is that last weeks figures jumped up and were consistent, which proves the halloween twists were a success. Partucularly because the longer a daily show has been running then the harder it becomes to affect the figures at all in the short term.

You also need to take into account there are at least four chances to watch the show in the week. 4.15pm, 5.15pm on Channel 4+1, 6.05pm on More4 and 7.05pm on More4+1. Not everybody have got Sky, while in 2006 there were two chances for Freeview viewers to see the show. Channel 4+1 didn't exist, while More4+1 was Quiz call back then.

As I've mentioned on here and on the Bar, many programmes look at audience share more than total viewers. The show is currently acheiving around 20-25% share (At least 1 in 5 viewers watching TV at 4.15pm watch DoND). Which in realtiy is fantastic for a channel who only get an all day share around 7-10%. You also need to account the average daytime programme get around 1 million. So anything above that is a bonus. A 33% drop in numbers for viewers might only be a 3-5% drop in audience share.

The show STILL appears in Channel 4's top thirty rated shows each week.

The whole DoND experience has gone the same way as Weakest Link. The show started with a bang in August 2000, everybody was talking about it. Which lead them to launch a primetime version in November 2000. While their best ratings were in 2001. In 2002 the ratings settled down and are acheiving respectable numbers in 2007.

That's exactly true from what I know too.

I was told by market research that, given the strength of the dond brand on the channel, it would remain profitable with a viewer share of 10%.

I was also told that the channel expected that the share would often drop as low 15% by now. Which it never does. So that shows how it's still a killer.

Undoubtedly the show is still popular. But audience share intrigues me. Because surely it could be the case that the dropping figures are due to people turning OFF altogether rather than just watching another channel? I know myself that if DOND wasn't on at 4:15, I wouldn't be watching TV at all at that time. So if the viewing figures drop but the audience share stays the same, could it be that people are possibly bored of The Weakest Link and are bored of DOND, and are simply switching their sets off? Just a thought. Either way, DOND is still getting fantastic ratings and audience share for what is essentially a daytime show. But I do have to wonder where 1 million viewers have gone.

ITV1 for a starter as their 4pm drama slot has worked. Acheiving double what CITV had. That and the multi-digital channel boom.

There'a an interesting answer to this which I just got from my mate Paul who I work with.

The same thing happened with the Weakest Link when it first started. Massive figures and millions watching at 6pm. Then a year later figures were down all across the board but the share was still great.

The answer is that the way the UK calculates figures is very inaccurate. It is, as I'm sure you know, multiplied up from a surprisingly small number of households with BARB boxes.

When a non-primetime show makes a massive impact - like TWL or DOND - many of these BARB owners watch TV when they otherwise wouldn't to see what all the fuss is. They stay for a certain number of months if they like the show, perhaps doing a bit of channel grazing late on, before returning to their normal routine. Thus, mysteriously millions of viewers disappear across the board.

Maybe this needs splitting off into a new thread (admins?) but it will be interesting to see how this trend continues. Over 2m may still be healthy ratings but if it loses another third of its audience by this time next year the show will surely be in some trouble - it's not like most daytime shows, e.g. Countdown can survive on 1m viewers a day because it gives away a few dictionaries and teapots rather than £5m a year! And in the post-LTL era, DOND's profit margins must be getting squeezed a fair bit.

We'll see. It's currently recomissioned for an additional 320 episodes to take the show to December 2008. While the DoND franchise is generating revenue and profit through other mediums rathan than the LTL.

I have heard rumours that The Paul O'Grady Show is set to bring back their Organ Game LTL but keeping the profits to charity.