Sticking it in Primetime maybe isn't the greatest move in the world, though. ITV learnt quickly that 7pm wasn't the place for Premiership highlights. Though I guess the shows Down Under are focusing on Australian Rules rather than soccer?

Yes I noticed that. But it can't have helped that it started slap bang in the middle of MasterChef.

Sea Patrol should be given a chance on another night of the week IMO as I don't think it is well suited to Thursdays.

Yep I believe so. Aussies dig their sport though, almost as much as news and current affairs!

When does Glee restart in Australia? with the Masterchef lead in, it could break out and become yet another hit for Ten.

This talk about Australian Television is making me a bit glum as I was supposed to be flying to Sydney last Monday but volcanic ash cancelled my flight but it could have been worse.

I thnk your right about Neighbours, I had gotten used to seeing it having 600,000+ viewers.

The BBC should MOve EastEnders to 10:00pm for a month
Have adverts stating the fact it will go out at 10:00pm Mon,Tues,Thur,Fri and have the reapt moved to BBC1 afternoons.
Im sure they will have a big storyline as they usually do so a bit of promotion and the fact it follows from the football will help and have the BBC news run 10:30pm every night.

But what would BBC3 then do?

The most ironic ratings today would be

2000-2130 BBC News Channel 900,000
2000-2130 Sky News Channel 500,000

Imagine Sky News being beaten on "their" night.

Well, they've got that Come Dine With Me special with Brian Paddick, Edwina Currie and Derek Hatton, none of whom are standing, so I'm sure that will take up the most of the first hour. Like when ITV showed It'll Be Alright On Election Night at 9pm in 2001, which struck me as very odd, not least because, unlike every episode of that series, it couldn't be repeated twenty thousand times.

morning guys

corrected data for w/e 17th January 2010 now on BARB website (missing Sat progs)

enjoy!

4.1m for the debate.

2.1m for sky news, 1.4m for the BBC news channel and 600k on Sky3

edit source Liam Hamiltons twitter.

This could mean the debate has a subdued effect. However, people would be relying on the News more for summaries where things can be twisted.

I right about the debate failing to get half the rating of last week, no matter what the hype

I reckon BBC1 will get around 8 million. ITV1 pulled off a coup by getting the first debate, especially as it set the agenda for the election.

According to This Week candiates on the campaign trail are annoyed that voters aren't listening to them and are waiting for the debates to make their minds up on who to vote for.

3.2m for Watchdog last night (lowest in 4 years)


A further 310,000 watched BBC2's repeat of the debate between 11.30pm and 1am

Still a good figure for the debate IMO is that Sky news' record rating?

despite it being on freeview, sky, virgin etc...a lot of people still have an inability to switch over from BBC1 and ITV1...so a drop off was a expected.

I think next weeks could go higher than the first debate, due to it being a week away from the election, it is on the economy and its on BBC1

It was decided by drawing straws or lots or flipping a coin, so no real coup was involved!


Its up against Coronation Street & a Liverpool game though

ah, I didn't realise that! maybe not then

Last nights was up against Corrie, Emmerdale and a Liverpool game on five. Quite good ratings really, I predict next week 7-8 million.

I think that's a good rating for Sky last night. Must be their highest rating?

BBC ONE
1.45pm Doctors 1.43m (24.1%)
7.30 Eastenders 8.14m (40%)
8pm Watchdog 3.2m (13.2%)
9pm Have I Got News For You 4.4m (17.6%)
Outnumbered – 5m (20.8%)

ITV1
7pm Emmerdale 6.32m (33.6%)
8pm Emmerdale 6.62m (33.6%)
8.30 Coronation street 7.34m (29.2%)
9pm The Greatest Cities in the World 2.9m (11.9%)

Five
5.30pm Neighbours 1.32m (10.7%)
6.00pm Home and Away 968k (6.2%)Europa League Live 7.30pm-10.15pm, average 2.5m (10.5%)s peak at 9.30pm with 3.6m (14.7%).

BBC2
8pm Museum of Life 908,000 (3.8%),
9pm Welcome to Lagos1.2m (5.1%)

C4
6 pm Hollyoaks 1.07m (6.2%).
8pmThe Landscape Man 980,000 (4%),[C4+1 145,000 (0.6%)]

9pm, How the Other Half Live 1.4m (5.6%) .
[208,600 (1.1%) on C4+1]

BBC 3
Eastenders 901k (4.4%)

Fiver
Home and Away 491k (2.8%)
7pm Neighbours 151k (0.8%).

E4
7pm Hollyoaks 353k (1.9%)

The Debate

Total live audience - 4.073 million

Sky News 2.125

BBC News Channel (1.362 million)

Sky3 (586,000) .

BBC2 11.30pm-1am 310,000

.

Yes but the only think is that next week Liverpool are at home, a goal down from the first leg & it could go to the wire. So the 9pm bounce may not happen for the debate post Coronation Street. Who knows though!

Moving this to Thursday is really a disaster. Not so much for ratings as for the fact that the content is so dated by the time it airs. If anything they should have moved it to Saturdays and recorded on Friday nights.

Do BBC News and Sky News count as multi channel. I only ask because according to the DS soap report EE ~900,000 at 10.00 on BBC3 was the "most watched multichannel programme" of the day.

Any idea how well the debate did on Sky News HD since it was plugged for 10 days straight with a countdown, or are they included int he Sky News figures?

Good figures for the debate yesterday - as expected it was Sky News' best rating ever (previous highest peak was 1.697m for the Louise Woodward Trial in '97). Not sure if that was BBC News' highest ever rating, certainly it must have been up there among its best. It's a difficult one to call how next week's debate will rate as the competition on the other channels is pretty difficult (Liverpool on Five and Corrie on ITV springs to mind) but it's the 'deciding debate' in a very tight election. Will be fascinating to see how it pans out.

'Enders still on form this week, the 40% share is very solid. Looks like the ITV soaps suffered once again due to Five's Liverpool match which did quite well. Both Watchdog and Greatest Cities were about half a million down on what I was expecting - Five and the multichannels definitely dented them. Greatest Cities will rate even worse next week, I'd imagine.

Low for HIGNFY but it's just a temporary blip. It'll be back up to its normal levels in a couple of weeks time once the debates are over. Outnumbered is performing extremely well at the moment. Having the repeat run last summer to introduce more viewers to the show seems to have paid off.

Edit: Here's a list of Sky News' million toppers before yesterday:
Peak (000s) Reach (000s)
1. Louise Woodward Trial - 1997 1,697 4,075
2. Iraq Conflict - 2003 1,213 6289
3. O.J. Simpson Trial - 1995 1,203 2686
4. Michael Jackson Verdict – 2005 1,069 3199
5. Princess Diana’s Death - 1997 1,026 5463
6. Holly Wells & Jessica Chapman Abduction - 2002 1,011 5026


The HD figures will be released later today. They take a while to come out.