To think people were talking about what the next show would be to hit 10m.

Last night both Corrie and EE had nearly 11m and will have over 11 in the officials.

The second Corrie will come pretty close to 11m as well.

So 3 soap episodes in one night managed to hit the double figures.

Superb for Emmerdale too.

More people were viewing tv at 8pm rather than 9pm last night so thats a bit weird isnt it?

High ratings last night, first day back in work and bad weather means alot of people watching TV I would imagine.
I don't understand the CBB scheduling, why have an ad break at 11 when it's ending at 11:10? I'm sure I'm not the only one who switched off at that point? Can't belivee I watched it . I would love to see the breakdown for the 70 mins out of curiosity?

Good ratings for the two 9pm dramas, it will be interesting to see how AS holds up, no competion tonight so should do well.

Perhaps many people had an 'early night' to try and get warm...?

I do think the ratings are weather related - note 4.3m for the DIY SOS slot-filling repeat against Corrie, well up on what Panorama would get there. And 3m for Uni Challenge against 16m watching BBC1/ITV1.

NB: 6.1m for Hustle is 400k up on its slot-winning debut last year in a less competitive slot.

Ofcom rules mean than primetime (dont mention the war!) ad time ends at 11pm so basically Ch 4 can make more money by stretching shows till 11.10pm and putting an ad break in at say 11.00 -11.04


yeah or after the first day back at work everybody was knackered by 9pm

Ah I see, that makes sense so, thanks for that

The soaps did well, especially EastEnders. Corrie and Emmerdale got similar ratings to last year's first Monday:

Whether it's the new BARB system, poor weather or a combination, it resulted in about 1.5 more people watching TV yesterday than last year's first Monday. In fact, the total audience watching TV last night wasn't too far off "Snow Day" and at 8pm there were even more people watching last night than SD!

Great ratings for the 9pm dramas. Including HD, Hustle must have been around 6.3m which is excellent. Above Suspicion rating similar to last year... I wonder if the weaker competition will help it out tonight or if it will fall due to it being a Tuesday.

The non-soap fillers did well for both channels, especially The Lakes. What an impressive start to the series, about 1-1.5m up from what Tonight usually gets. Big Brother on Channel 4 did fine, though I think it'll continue falling and level off to sub-3m.

I think it'll slip tonight but should still win its slot. Collision held up quite well on the Tuesday night IIRC.

Is it only a "Snow Day" if London & the SE is affected?

The snow that has kept me housebound today in the north seems far worse than that in London last February (where I just happened to be at the time); the south looks likely to get it tomorrow.

I would expect some pretty big ratings all week assuming this continues.

Emmerdale did fantastic. So good to see it getting 8 million. Hasn't had a figure like that for ages.

Glad Above Suspicion did well. It was brilliant first time round, and this new series is shaping out to be another brilliant series.

Also glad Hustle did well. It wasn't my fave episode at all, infact I found it a little weak, but its still a good drama overall.

Monday 4th January 2009
BBC One
13:30 - BBC Regional News: 3.10m (29.7%)
13:45 - Doctors: 1.83m (20.1%)
18:00 - BBC News At Six: 5.81m (26.4%)
18:30 - BBC Regional News: 8.11m (35.1%)
19:00 - Celebrity Mastermind: 5.32m (22.0%)
19:30 - My Family: 4.23m (16.6%)
20:00 - EastEnders: 10.79m (39.1%)
20:30 - DIY SOS: 4.33m (15.9%)
21:00 - Hustle: 6.05m (22.9%)
22:00 - BBC News At Ten: 5.05m (22.3%)
22:25 - BBC Regional News: 5.17m (24.7%)

BBC Two
20:00 - University Challenge: 2.90m (10.4%)
20:30 - FILM: Death Defying Acts: 940,000 (3.5%)
22:00 - Nurse Jackie: 1.11m (5%)

ITV1
18:00 - ITV Regional News: 4.36m (19.8%)
18:30 - ITV News: 4.46m (18.8%)
19:00 - Emmerdale: 8.35m (34.4%)
19:30 - Coronation Street: 10.84m (42.6%)
20:00 - The Lakes: 4.79m (17.4%)
20:30 - Coronation Street: 10.50m (38.5%)
* 20:30 to 20:55 - 11.06m (40.4%)
21:00 - Above Suspicion: 6.74m (25.6%)
22:00 - ITV News At Ten: 3.18m (14.2%)

Channel 4
18:30 - Hollyoaks: 1.81m (7.6%)
* +1: 124,000 (0.5%)
20:00 - The Mystery Of The Nevada Triangle: 1.79m (6.5%)
21:00 - Generation XXL: 1.78m (6.8%)
22:00 - Celebrity Big Brother: 3.38m (18.0%)
* +1: 120,000

Five
17:30 - Neighbours: 1.44m (7.9%)
20:00 - Police Interceptors: 810,000 (3%)
21:00 - FILM: Wyatt Earp: 722,000 (4.4%)

BBC Three
22:00 - EastEnders: 715,000 (3.2%)

ITV2
23:45 - Coronation Street: 187,000 (2.4%)
00:15 - Coronation Street: 222,000 (3.8%)

E4
19:00 - Hollyoaks: 607,000 (2.5%)
* +1: 102,000 (0.4%)

Fiver
19:00 - Neighbours: 152,000 (0.6%)

Thanks to MattJ and DS for the figures

Very good ratings for the soaps last night, and good rating for The Lakes. Good for Above Suspicion and Hustle, while CBB brings a very good share.

MattJ notes on another forum that Above Suspicion lost viewers throughout the hour, while Hustle gained viewers:

Time - BBC1 - ITV1
21:00 - 5.94m - 7.37m
21:15 - 5.99m - 6.72m
21:30 - 6.07m - 6.42m
21:45 - 6.19m - 6.45m

More than 8 million watching BBC Regional News at 18.30. I know this figure is boosted by bad weather, but we tend to ignore this early evening news on this forum and talk about shows at 21.00 getting 4 million being a great success.

any figures for Live From Studio Five?

Ooh The Lakes did pretty well. High ratings all round last night. Good to see. Wonder what tonight will bring. Tuesdays always seem low, no matter what is on. But with the snow continuing surely ratings will be pretty high again.

Above Suspicion and Hustle both did really well, considering they were up against each other. I feel that if they were placed in different slots, they could have improved on the figures they got last night. I'll go out on a whim now and predict AS will rise slightly tonight, due to less competition, the snow and some viewers recording last night's episode to maybe watch today, before tonight's second part.

The soaps are doing brilliantly well. I'm not sure how long it'll hold up for though as it's the start of the year, it's snowing and it's similar to what they had at the start of 2009. We could see their ratings slip to their usual levels within the next couple of weeks.

If Big Brother holds onto 3 million viewers, I think that will be a good performance from BB and for Channel 4.

MediaGuardian reports 200,000 (1%).

Well the snow has now moved down to blanket the Midlands, so today really should see some snow day style numbers - in fairness last night did! Above Suspicion could well see a bump, while BBC One must be annoyed they're not launching anything new tonight (Survivors starts next week).

Amazing numbers for the Soaps last night. They were all at the top ends of the shares we expect from them, and the overall number of people watching TV really drove them to great heights. Emmerdale always particularly prospers in this week with no One Show. I was surprised to see EastEnders retain its strong comparative position with Corrie too, though.

Hustle did brilliantly to rise year-on-year against Above Suspicion. If anything took a dent, it was the latter - though the numbers are obviously still very positive. Heartening to see two dramas performing well opposite eachother.

I think that sort of lead time is probably more common than people think.


Doesn't quite work like that as one the current contract ends, it has no bearing on the value of future contracts - so C4 could commission it again at a much lower price closer to what it's actually worth.


A bit of good news for everyone there.


Of course.

It looks like rating peaked at 8pm last night at 27.6million viewers, glad to see my 10 million target was met on no less than 3 occasions in the same evening. A solid 40% share for the main 2 soaps.

I know we can all seem ratings obsessed here - but do people prefer to see a channel dominating peaktime ?? Or would most people prefer a split of say 25% BBC1 - 25% ITV1 - 10% BBC2 - 10% C4 - 5% C5 - 25% Multi-channels.

I think a lot of posters like to see a surprise in the ratings. It is always nice when a a long running show eg. Countryfile does unexpectedly well in a new slot.

Im so glad to see that Hustle did well! I was worried foe it TBH!! i thought it would be around 4.6m... AS did as well as i thought it would, and really good for the soaps

I know this argument is now more or less over but I thought it was relevant to add that Victor Lewis-Smith once wrote that a friend of his once spent time in a mental hospital, and the telly was permanently stuck on ITV with all the other buttons taped over. He was told that this was the only channel safe to show patients without challenging them too much.

I'll be surprised if we don't see a bump in the figures tonight thanks to the snow. I expect EastEnders will do better than it usually would on a Tuesday night.

Everything and everyone has ground to a halt where I live.

Man U v Man City postponed tomorrow - big blow for BBC1. Rescheduled for Tuesday 19th.

Not sure what will happen with how Sky/BBC will divvy these up.

(EDIT: Presumably they'll just continue with BBC1 showing the Wednesday matches and Sky the Tuesday ones, as already in the schedule, but BBC1 will now have the 2nd leg of Man U v City and Sky the 2nd leg of Blackburn v Villa?)

At a guess I'd say that each network will keep the matches they were originally allocated but I'm not certain. If that is the case then it not only buggers up Wedensdays but Survivors will be cocked up too, and if BBC1 still have the United v City derby on Tues 19th, then it'll mean Survivors being yanked off after just one episode, which would be horrendous for them, especially with all the promotion it's had.

It's a real blow for them. I presume another George Gently repeat will be wheeled out tomorrow like next week, but I'd be tempted to slot a repeat of So You Think You Can Dance in at 7.30pm to boost it's awareness, as it seems to have had a fair bit of press this week.

Fantastic figures all round last night. I suppose it shows that there's room for big drama on both channels if the quality is good enough (I'm looking at you The Bill). It's good to see Hustle increasing it's figures from last series opener. It's probably one of my favourite dramas and it's good to have a popular drama that doesn't involve coppers.

Surely Emmerdale's rise in viewers can't be down to the lack of The One Show, as Celebrity Mastermind got 5.32m opposite it. I agree with the suggestion made earlier that The One Show should have finished on 18 December, so it was ready to come back last night.

Another noticably figure is the 4.33m for a REPEAT of DIY SOS. Panorama could really do with being moved from there, but then BBC One would be accused of dumbing down again.


I've just heard that this weather is to continue for another week and a half, so Survivors may still get the benefit of it next week.


Ouch, but at least they'll still be getting the Manchester derby in a fortnight's time.

In wonder what they'll replace it with. They can't really put another Traffic Cops in there, as it's already airing tonight. I'm thinking possibly an episode of Inspector Linley or George Gentely, as they've both got 1.5 hr running times. Or maybe a Vicar of Dibley marathon