And had last night's R&C aired on a Sunday night in January, the most-watched TV night of the week in the depths of winter, your comparison might have had some relevance. I'm sure it would have done better than 5.2m had it been held back a month and the schedule was the same as above.
If we compare like with like, here are the equivalent (official) ratings for the same Christmas Wednesday in 2009:
BBC1:
20.00 Waterloo Road 5.30m
21.00 The Turn of the Screw 5.19m (90 min drama)
ITV1:
19.30 Emmerdale 6.61m
20.00 Countrywise 3.39m
20.30/21.00 ????? - no shows in the Top 30 for Wednesday after Countrywise so whatever they aired flopped with less than 3.19m
So despite ITV1 offering only a pair of flops on the equivalent night last year, BBC1 could only get official ratings of 5.3m and 5.2m for its 8pm and 9pm offerings - so it's likely both Polar Bear and R&C will better that when the official numbers come out. In that context, it wasn't that disastrous a night for BBC1 - just poor scheduling of one of their key festive offerings.
The Marple last year (NYD at 9pm) got 5.55m btw...
If we compare like with like, here are the equivalent (official) ratings for the same Christmas Wednesday in 2009:
BBC1:
20.00 Waterloo Road 5.30m
21.00 The Turn of the Screw 5.19m (90 min drama)
ITV1:
19.30 Emmerdale 6.61m
20.00 Countrywise 3.39m
20.30/21.00 ????? - no shows in the Top 30 for Wednesday after Countrywise so whatever they aired flopped with less than 3.19m
In 2008, Wednesday was NYE so not fair to include that. But I see the only post 8pm show other than the soaps that made the BBC1 and ITV1 top 30s for the Monday and Tuesday that year was Millionaire on the Monday with a so-so 5.04m - whatever BBC1 aired on Monday and Tuesday as its key evening offerings got less than 4.77m.
In 2007, Boxing Day was a Wednesday and the competing BBC1 and ITV1 offerings were Ballet Shoes (BBC1) with 5.73m and The Old Curiosity Shop (ITV1) with 4.94m. Other key BBC1 offerings in the "hinterland" were Extras (Thurs 27th) with 5.63m and Meet the Fockers (Fri 28th) with 5.99m - nothing to get excited about there.
Going back to 2006, on Weds 27th BBC1 got a decent 7.07m for its The Ruby in the Smoke drama, but on the next night its big Dracula dramatisation only got 5.23m at 9pm against something called The Perfect Parents on ITV1 with 3.8m.
And in 2005, BBC1's big Wednesday night offering was the film premiere Signs with 5.77m - ITV showed Whatever Love Means (a Charles & Diana drama IIRC) with 4.91m. The next night, Thur 29th they rolled out Lara Croft Tomb Raider again (8pm) to 5.39m - ITV got 6.10m for The Bill (:eek:) and 4.82m for a Titanic documentary at 9pm.
So, in conclusion, nothing to get excited about re last night's figures - they are rather good actually for both channels!
Thanks George - so comparing the key overnights from last year, both BBC1 and ITV1 can have reason to be cheerful really!
Wednesday 30th December Roundup
BBC One
19:00- Big Top: 2.58 m ( 12.3 % )
19:30- Celebrity Mastermind: 3.82 m ( 16.9 % )
20:00- Waterloo Road: 4.89 m ( 21.0 % )
21:00- The Turn Of The Screw: 4.80 m ( 20.7 % )
22:30- BBC News: 4.69 m ( 24.0 % )
ITV1
19:00- Grimefighters: 4.48 m ( 21.3 % )
19:30- Emmerdale: 6.52 m ( 28.7 % )
20:00- Countrywise: 3.59 m ( 15.4 % )
21:00- Piers Morgan'S Review Of The Year: 2.68 m ( 11.5 % )
22:30- ITV News: 2.20 m ( 11.6 % )
Bravo closes this week but Channel 1 does not close until the end of January. Sky Atlantic starts in February. So any reorganisation of the EPG will likely occur at the same time as the last event as otherwise there would be several changes in quick succession.
Wednesday 29 December 2010 BBC One
06:00 - Breakfast: 1.3m (37.0%)
13:35 - Doctor Who: 1.4m (12.7%)
16:05 - FILM: Mary Poppins: 3.7m (21.0%)
18:20 - BBC News: 7.43m (33.0%)
18:45 - BBC Regional News: 7.79m (33.3%)
19:00 - Celebrity Mastermind: 4.77m (19.6%)
19:30 - Dig 1940: 3.73m (15.9%)
20:00 - Polar Bear: Spy on the Ice: 5.39m (21.0%)
21:00 - Rock and Chips: 5.15m (20.3%)
22:00 - BBC News: 4.73m (20.8%)
22:15 - BBC Regional News: 4.81m (22.1%)
22:25 - Lottery / Match of the Day: 3.0m (18.5%)
Not good for Rock and Chips. Although that wasn't a very good slot for it I would have expected it to pull in around 6 million. At least there has already been another episode made for Easter 2011 so it has a chance to redeem itself. The BBC will need to be very careful about how they schedule that as TV ratings are generally down during Easter bank holiday weekends.
Are there any demographic stats for Rock And Chips? For example I'd be interested to know whether it skews old like Marple does.
Five (inc HD)
18:05 - Eddie Stobart: Trucks and Trailers: 0.6m (2.6%)
19:00 - Cowboy Builders: 0.9m (3.7%)
20:00 - Cheryl Cole: Where Did It All Go Right And Wrong: 1.10m (4.3%)
21:00 - Most Shocking Celebrity Moments: 1.50m (7.5%)
Good night for channel 5. "Most Shocking Celebrity Moments" went on for 3 hours until midnight last night so to average 1.5m across that time is pretty good.
Five (inc HD)
18:05 - Eddie Stobart: Trucks and Trailers: 0.6m (2.6%)
19:00 - Cowboy Builders: 0.9m (3.7%)
20:00 - Cheryl Cole: Where Did It All Go Right And Wrong: 1.10m (4.3%)
21:00 - Most Shocking Celebrity Moments: 1.50m (7.5%)
Primetime Shares
C5 - 5.3%
C4 - 4.0% (+1: 0.7%)
Very good for Ch5 there. After a couple of poor days they finally recovered. Considering everything before 9pm were repeats, they did very well. Eddie Stobart and Cowboy Builders considerably up on what LFSF/the news get and having to air the news there is a huge headache for Ch5 as the slot could do much better offering decent alternatives to the soaps and Ch4 news.
The themed celebrity night worked well too, because I doubt Cheryl would have pulled in over 1m on a normal night considering it was a repeat, and like others have said to average 1.5m till midnight is very good. Also Ch5 tend to get at least two primetime showings from these clip shows, so all of them that have aired tend to bring in 2m viewers collectively which will prove worthwhile.
Also just to point out, another comfortable win over Ch4.
In 2008, Wednesday was NYE so not fair to include that. But I see the only post 8pm show other than the soaps that made the BBC1 and ITV1 top 30s for the Monday and Tuesday that year was Millionaire on the Monday with a so-so 5.04m - whatever BBC1 aired on Monday and Tuesday as its key evening offerings got less than 4.77m.
In 2008 Monday at 8.30 was the premier of Superman Returns starring Brandon Routh.
Tuesday at 9pm was Michael Palin's Around The World In 20 Years, a anniversary celebration of Around The World In 80 Days. I remember being very surprised that this performed very poorly in the ratings.
Thanks for posting the previous year comparisons Robbie. Its good to see a bit of context being used to look at the ratings.
It did well compared to programmes which have aired in similar slots in previous years but that was to be expected - afterall the first episode did get 7.5m. But I think it should've rated better - a 31% fall compared to episode one is pretty big even when taking into account it was up against Marple (which is not even a big-hitter anyway). As for there being little promotion for it, I remember there was little promotion for the first episode too.
Comparing ratings to the same slot to previous years can be a bit misleading: if, for example, New Tricks suddenly got 5m for a new episode, its rating would probably still be higher than 90% of programmes which have occupied that same slot in previous years, but it would be a poor result by the programme's own standard. That's sort of how I look at Rock & Chips' rating too. Yesterday's rating wasn't at an "ouch" level but it was disappointing nevertheless - the rating for the Easter special will now be even more important for the show's future. It'll have to be carefully scheduled, but I'm not sure if Easter Sunday will really be a good option, because Lewis will probably be airing on Sundays on ITV around then which would be tough competition. In that case, Good Friday or Easter Monday would be better for it IMO.
Not sure what you can tell from that. Marple's very popular with 55+ year olds - it's possible that the first episode of Rock & Chips had a bigger 55+ skew but yesterday's episode might've been lower due to Marple airing on ITV1 at the same time and taking away those viewers... we won't know unless we see the age profile of R&C's first episode (which I don't have).
On another note - Marple's 0.9m rise yesterday compared to Monday's episode was nearly all due to 0.9m more 55+ year olds watching it yesterday (almost the same no. of 4-54 year olds watched yesterday and Monday's Marple).
Not sure what you can tell from that. Marple's very popular with 55+ year olds - it's possible that the first episode of Rock & Chips had a bigger 55+ skew but yesterday's episode might've been lower due to Marple airing on ITV1 at the same time and taking away those viewers... we won't know unless we see the age profile of R&C's first episode (which I don't have).
On another note - Marple's 0.9m rise yesterday compared to Monday's episode was nearly all due to 0.9m more 55+ year olds watching it yesterday (almost the same no. of 4-54 year olds watched yesterday and Monday's Marple).
4-54 year old age bracket cracks me up.
FOUR? Seriously?! Any four year old watching Marple shouldn't be counted.
Not sure what you can tell from that. Marple's very popular with 55+ year olds - it's possible that the first episode of Rock & Chips had a bigger 55+ skew but yesterday's episode might've been lower due to Marple airing on ITV1 at the same time and taking away those viewers... we won't know unless we see the age profile of R&C's first episode (which I don't have).
On another note - Marple's 0.9m rise yesterday compared to Monday's episode was nearly all due to 0.9m more 55+ year olds watching it yesterday (almost the same no. of 4-54 year olds watched yesterday and Monday's Marple).
Thanks. Yes I think you are right in that we can't draw too much from that without seeing episode 1 demographics, but it is interesting to see nonetheless. However, It is a bit concerning to see that Rock And Chips lost viewers throughout the hour until the 10pm news viewers started tuning in early. I watched the episode myself and thought the first 15mins were a bit rubbish but thought it picked up quite nicely with some decent laughs after the 15/20 minute point. Maybe that would have put off some of the casual viewers just dipping in at the start
Also: worth mentioning that STV's opt-out for Marple yesterday, De-Lovely, only averaged 85k (4.5%) between 8-10pm. That's a shocking rating for them, well below the network average of 21%. Could even be their worst ever rated primetime programme (7-10:30pm).
If Marple had been shown on STV, the national average for 8-10pm would've probably been 300k better (5.4m).
Marple must be the least advertiser friendly programme on ITV1, quite frankly.
It does very well amongst ABC1s who are also very lucrative so I suspect it actually does okay advertising-wise.
Thanks for the age breakdowns rzt. Out of interest, do you have any sort of age breakdown for Downton Abbey as normally I suspect that sort of thing would skew old but with an X Factor lead-in that may not have been the case as much. Thanks.
Marple must be the least advertiser friendly programme on ITV1, quite frankly.
It's not quite the worst age-wise: 50% of Heartbeat's audience for an episode last series were aged over 65, and even worse... 54% of Taggart's audience for episode one of its previous series were aged over 65.
Thanks for the age breakdowns rzt. Out of interest, do you have any sort of age breakdown for Downton Abbey as normally I suspect that sort of thing would skew old but with an X Factor lead-in that may not have been the case as much. Thanks.
For episode 7 of Downton Abbey, its age profile was:
Even with TXF lead-in: it skewed heavily towards 55/65+ year olds (like all period dramas). You could say though that the 37% skew of A65+ was lower than most other period dramas. For e.g.: Marple was 48% yesterday, Heartbeat: ~50%, Upstairs Downstairs: 41% for its series.
In raw numbers, however, that 16-34 audience was ITV's best for a (non-soap) drama this year and it also skews the best ABC1-wise (51% for that episode).
Even with TXF lead-in: it skewed heavily towards 55/65+ year olds (like all period dramas). You could say though that the 37% skew of A65+ was lower than most other period dramas. For e.g.: Marple was 48% yesterday, Heartbeat: ~50%, Upstairs Downstairs: 41% for its series.
In raw numbers, however, that 16-34 audience was ITV's best for a (non-soap) drama this year and it also skews the best ABC1-wise (51% for that episode).
Thanks for that rzt. So The X Factor probably did boost the number of young viewers watching the most, as over 1m for a period drama is very good indeed. It still had plenty of older viewers watching though, and with HD more than 5m ABC1s will have watched which is exceptional.
Even with TXF lead-in: it skewed heavily towards 55/65+ year olds (like all period dramas). You could say though that the 37% skew of A65+ was lower than most other period dramas. For e.g.: Marple was 48% yesterday, Heartbeat: ~50%, Upstairs Downstairs: 41% for its series.
In raw numbers, however, that 16-34 audience was ITV's best for a (non-soap) drama this year and it also skews the best ABC1-wise (51% for that episode).
Very good numbers there, although I guess that's not too surprising considering the lead-in. The raw numbers for 16 to 34 y/o is good as well.
Which leads to a question: Do you know how The X Factor Final did in the demos?
I thought it took 15-20mins to get going really last night - that may knock its ratings and if it sustains 6m that will be in line with expectations, any better will be pretty good really.
Well, looks like I was right in fearing that the difficult first 20 minutes might have put folk off R&C. It clearly cost it 600k viewers at least. Even as on OFAH fan, I was struggling to remember who was who and what the story was from last January.
Worrying that another 150k switched off in the next 20 minutes. But for the Marple switchers coming back for the news, it would probably have ended up at 4.7m and an average of just 5m.
No doubt John Sullivan will be grousing today about the scheduling, but he really needs to look at the numbers who tuned out after 20 minutes.
I'm sure R&C will rally a bit at Easter (depending on what ITV put up against it in late April), but there must be real questions about the sustainability of R&C as a format.
A few more ratings comparisons from last Christmas.
The Day Of The Triffids, which occupied the Christmas Monday and Tuesday slots held by Upstairs Downstairs this year, had 6.10m on the Monday (c.f UD's 6.66m) and 5.60m on Tuesday (6.88m). Triffids' ratings don't include HD, plus each episode was 90 minutes long.
Celebrity Mastermind, on Christmas Wednesday, had 3.82m, well down on the 4.77m it had last night. Like last night, it was on against Emmerdale but in a 7.30 slot. Its lead-in was episode 6 of Big Top, so that explains its appalling performance.
Incidentally, does anyone remember the audience appreciation index for episode 1 of Big Top last year. I can recall it being shockingly low and put Come Fly With Me's 78 into perspective.
but if that is the case, why is Breakfast doing so well?
That doesn't surprise me. I suspect the typical Breakfast viewer is up at 6.30am on their day off reading the paper (once the butler has ironed it of course! )
Comments
At the risk of intruding into your personal grief (chin up old boy
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=37568600&postcount=1643
In 2008, Wednesday was NYE so not fair to include that. But I see the only post 8pm show other than the soaps that made the BBC1 and ITV1 top 30s for the Monday and Tuesday that year was Millionaire on the Monday with a so-so 5.04m - whatever BBC1 aired on Monday and Tuesday as its key evening offerings got less than 4.77m.
In 2007, Boxing Day was a Wednesday and the competing BBC1 and ITV1 offerings were Ballet Shoes (BBC1) with 5.73m and The Old Curiosity Shop (ITV1) with 4.94m. Other key BBC1 offerings in the "hinterland" were Extras (Thurs 27th) with 5.63m and Meet the Fockers (Fri 28th) with 5.99m - nothing to get excited about there.
Going back to 2006, on Weds 27th BBC1 got a decent 7.07m for its The Ruby in the Smoke drama, but on the next night its big Dracula dramatisation only got 5.23m at 9pm against something called The Perfect Parents on ITV1 with 3.8m.
And in 2005, BBC1's big Wednesday night offering was the film premiere Signs with 5.77m - ITV showed Whatever Love Means (a Charles & Diana drama IIRC) with 4.91m. The next night, Thur 29th they rolled out Lara Croft Tomb Raider again (8pm) to 5.39m - ITV got 6.10m for The Bill (:eek:) and 4.82m for a Titanic documentary at 9pm.
So, in conclusion, nothing to get excited about re last night's figures - they are rather good actually for both channels!
Thanks George - so comparing the key overnights from last year, both BBC1 and ITV1 can have reason to be cheerful really!
Not good for Rock and Chips. Although that wasn't a very good slot for it I would have expected it to pull in around 6 million. At least there has already been another episode made for Easter 2011 so it has a chance to redeem itself. The BBC will need to be very careful about how they schedule that as TV ratings are generally down during Easter bank holiday weekends.
Are there any demographic stats for Rock And Chips? For example I'd be interested to know whether it skews old like Marple does.
Good night for channel 5. "Most Shocking Celebrity Moments" went on for 3 hours until midnight last night so to average 1.5m across that time is pretty good.
Very good for Ch5 there. After a couple of poor days they finally recovered. Considering everything before 9pm were repeats, they did very well. Eddie Stobart and Cowboy Builders considerably up on what LFSF/the news get and having to air the news there is a huge headache for Ch5 as the slot could do much better offering decent alternatives to the soaps and Ch4 news.
The themed celebrity night worked well too, because I doubt Cheryl would have pulled in over 1m on a normal night considering it was a repeat, and like others have said to average 1.5m till midnight is very good. Also Ch5 tend to get at least two primetime showings from these clip shows, so all of them that have aired tend to bring in 2m viewers collectively which will prove worthwhile.
Also just to point out, another comfortable win over Ch4.
In 2008 Monday at 8.30 was the premier of Superman Returns starring Brandon Routh.
Tuesday at 9pm was Michael Palin's Around The World In 20 Years, a anniversary celebration of Around The World In 80 Days. I remember being very surprised that this performed very poorly in the ratings.
Whoa, careful there. That's very nearly taking the spirit of Christams too far.
Comparing ratings to the same slot to previous years can be a bit misleading: if, for example, New Tricks suddenly got 5m for a new episode, its rating would probably still be higher than 90% of programmes which have occupied that same slot in previous years, but it would be a poor result by the programme's own standard. That's sort of how I look at Rock & Chips' rating too. Yesterday's rating wasn't at an "ouch" level but it was disappointing nevertheless - the rating for the Easter special will now be even more important for the show's future. It'll have to be carefully scheduled, but I'm not sure if Easter Sunday will really be a good option, because Lewis will probably be airing on Sundays on ITV around then which would be tough competition. In that case, Good Friday or Easter Monday would be better for it IMO.
2100 - 5.60m
2105 - 5.40m
2110 - 5.23m
2115 - 5.12m
2120 - 5.04m
2125 - 5.01m
2130 - 5.04m
2135 - 5.00m
2140 - 4.91m
2145 - 4.88m
2150 - 5.03m
2155 - 5.49m
Rock & Chips' age profile yesterday:
Total: 5.15m
C4-15: 0.249m (5% of audience)
A16-34: 0.739m (14%)
A35-44: 0.788m (15%)
A45-54: 0.972m (19%)
A55-64: 1.05m (20%)
A65+: 1.352m (26%)
Marple's age profile yesterday was:
Total: 4.81m (exc. HD)
C4-15: 0.165m (3%)
A16-34: 0.281m (6%)
A35-44: 0.376m (8%)
A45-54: 0.719m (15%)
A55-64: 0.98m (20%)
A65+: 2.29m (48%)
Not sure what you can tell from that. Marple's very popular with 55+ year olds - it's possible that the first episode of Rock & Chips had a bigger 55+ skew but yesterday's episode might've been lower due to Marple airing on ITV1 at the same time and taking away those viewers... we won't know unless we see the age profile of R&C's first episode (which I don't have).
On another note - Marple's 0.9m rise yesterday compared to Monday's episode was nearly all due to 0.9m more 55+ year olds watching it yesterday (almost the same no. of 4-54 year olds watched yesterday and Monday's Marple).
FOUR? Seriously?! Any four year old watching Marple shouldn't be counted.
Thanks. Yes I think you are right in that we can't draw too much from that without seeing episode 1 demographics, but it is interesting to see nonetheless. However, It is a bit concerning to see that Rock And Chips lost viewers throughout the hour until the 10pm news viewers started tuning in early. I watched the episode myself and thought the first 15mins were a bit rubbish but thought it picked up quite nicely with some decent laughs after the 15/20 minute point. Maybe that would have put off some of the casual viewers just dipping in at the start
Marple must be the least advertiser friendly programme on ITV1, quite frankly.
If Marple had been shown on STV, the national average for 8-10pm would've probably been 300k better (5.4m).
It does very well amongst ABC1s who are also very lucrative so I suspect it actually does okay advertising-wise.
Thanks for the age breakdowns rzt.
Total: 9.61m (exc HD)
C4-15: 0.344m (4% of audience)
A16-34: 1.07m (11%)
A35-44: 1.03m (11%)
A45-54: 1.57m (16%)
A55-64: 2.04m (21%)
A65+: 3.56m (37%)
Even with TXF lead-in: it skewed heavily towards 55/65+ year olds (like all period dramas). You could say though that the 37% skew of A65+ was lower than most other period dramas. For e.g.: Marple was 48% yesterday, Heartbeat: ~50%, Upstairs Downstairs: 41% for its series.
In raw numbers, however, that 16-34 audience was ITV's best for a (non-soap) drama this year and it also skews the best ABC1-wise (51% for that episode).
Thanks for that rzt.
Very good numbers there, although I guess that's not too surprising considering the lead-in. The raw numbers for 16 to 34 y/o is good as well.
Which leads to a question: Do you know how The X Factor Final did in the demos?
Well, looks like I was right in fearing that the difficult first 20 minutes might have put folk off R&C. It clearly cost it 600k viewers at least. Even as on OFAH fan, I was struggling to remember who was who and what the story was from last January.
Worrying that another 150k switched off in the next 20 minutes. But for the Marple switchers coming back for the news, it would probably have ended up at 4.7m and an average of just 5m.
No doubt John Sullivan will be grousing today about the scheduling, but he really needs to look at the numbers who tuned out after 20 minutes.
I'm sure R&C will rally a bit at Easter (depending on what ITV put up against it in late April), but there must be real questions about the sustainability of R&C as a format.
21:00 - 7.4m (26.1%)
21:15 - 7.5m (26.3%)
21:30 - 7.6m (27.1%)
21:45 - 7.5m (27.6%)
22:00 - 7.4m (28.6%)
22:15 - 7.4m (31.4%)
Very steady, so a little worrying how it lost viewers for the recent episode.
Do 65 year olds buy sofas? because that's all that is being advertised at the moment!
The Day Of The Triffids, which occupied the Christmas Monday and Tuesday slots held by Upstairs Downstairs this year, had 6.10m on the Monday (c.f UD's 6.66m) and 5.60m on Tuesday (6.88m). Triffids' ratings don't include HD, plus each episode was 90 minutes long.
Celebrity Mastermind, on Christmas Wednesday, had 3.82m, well down on the 4.77m it had last night. Like last night, it was on against Emmerdale but in a 7.30 slot. Its lead-in was episode 6 of Big Top, so that explains its appalling performance.
Incidentally, does anyone remember the audience appreciation index for episode 1 of Big Top last year. I can recall it being shockingly low and put Come Fly With Me's 78 into perspective.
Feb 1st I believe.