Everything seems down last night with DW the only standout rating, but even that is down. Considering the later timeslot and much better lead in I would have thought OTR would have increased by more than 0.2m and the following shows were down on their usual performances.

Not quite sure what happened to ITV1-how has PTB suddenly lost 1.5m viewers, likewise with Piers??

The only thing which stands out there is The Door-whilst everything else bombed (compared to what they usually get), The Door managed to match Fridays performance and was only 0.4m behind Ant & Dec.

CSI:NY continues to struggle it seems.

Starting to think BGT will be considerably down this year..

I agree, I'm beginning to think it'll probably be back down to 2008 levels - 8.5-9.5m or so for auditons and 9-11m for the live shows. They need to replace Amanda Holden to freshen it up.

Easter Saturday April 3rd: Multichannel Ratings
BBC News
08:00- Breakfast: 0.44m (8.00%)

BBC Three
19:25- Doctor Who Confidential: 0.88m (4.32%)
20:10- Top Gear: 0.77m (3.66%)
21:30- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl: 0.87m (4.85%)
23:40- Russell Howard's Good News Extra: 0.43m (4.56%)
00:25- Family Guy: 0.40m (6.07%)

BBC Four
19:00- Oklahoma!: 0.34m (1.64%)
21:15- Wallander: 0.33m (1.62%)

Dave
19:40- QI: 0.34m (1.67%)
20:20- QI: 0.38m (1.83%)
21:40- Mock the Week: 0.40m (1.94%)

ITV2
18:55- Apollo 13: 0.32m (1.56%)
21:40- The Sixth Sense: 0.33 (1.93%)

ITV3
17:50- Agatha Christie's Poirot: 0.51m (2.55%)
19:55- Agatha Christie's Poirot: 0.54m (2.64%)
21:00- Lewis: 0.67m (3.35%)

Sky Sports 1
12:00- Live Ford Football Special: Man Utd vs. Chelsea: 1.74m (19.00%)
15:00- Gillette Soccer Saturday: 0.55m (4.27%)
-------------
Looks like BBC3 and ITV3 had good ratings yesterday evening. Also strong performances by Breakfast and the football earlier on.

I think thats pretty good for Doctor Who getting 8.0m, which is exactly the same as David Tennant's first episode was. That 36.8% share is higher than any episode of Eastenders this week, and all but one episode of Corrie, which is impressive. I'm guessing their was an additional 1.5% - 2.0% of share on HD as well.

I demand to know what the previous posts said.

Er, pretty please....

Doctor Who might have done a bit better if they'd stuck to 45 minutes too - I see there's another extended episode in a couple of weeks, completely unnecessary.

Considering in the 20-minutes I managed of Doctor DW Who last night absolutely nothing happened, it could quite easily have been cut into a 45-minute episode and probably would have been better off for it.

Anyone else underwhelmed? That's slightly less than what the Man Utd vs Liverpool game got a few weeks ago, albeit on a Sunday.

I expected more for this, with the big two battling it out and a somewhat surprising result. Perhaps the 3D gimmick actually succeeded in getting more people down the pub to watch it.

As much as I think the current panel is pretty good, I do think Simon needs to get rid of both Amanda and Piers and bring in new, fresh talent. It didn't work with Kelly Brook, but that was because it was just adding someone else. Starting from scratch would boost the show I think.

I'm surprised he's keeping the same lineup for the forth year in a row. Is there something in Piers & Amanda's ITV contracts that says Simon can't axe them or something??

Although The Door didn't rate particularly well, I think its performance shows that the Friday 9pm slot clearly doesn't work for entertainment. Last night, it had half the lead-in of Coronation Street yet its rating was about the same.

I can't see Marco's Kitchen Burnout doing too well; I think it'll rate around 3.0-3.5m. After Kitchen Burnout/BGT, ITV ought to just put some drama repeats there in the summer before Paul O'Grady begins. And then ditch the Friday night entertainment shows (or switch it to another night) after PoG ends.


Lol, initially it said 8.0m on BBC1 + 0.3m on HD. So the revised number went down by 0.3m.


If it had been 45 mins starting at the same time, Doctor Who would've rated even lower as the figures picked up from 18:45-19:00 onwards.

I think it's quite likely that there'll be a drop of about a million next week due to the earlier start, second episode syndrome, and tougher competition from ITV1. In fact, it might be close next week between Doctor Who and the Harry Potter premiere for top spot as IIRC the last premiere had over 7m viewers.


Bear in mind that it includes 45 mins of pre-match talk and nearly half an hour of post-match talk. Also, Sunday afternoon ratings are nearly always higher than Saturday afternoon figures. The match itself probably had 2.5m watching it, which I think is excellent for that time of the day.

Winter in the air today here in Northants with frequent bursts of hail coming out of the sky and cold to boot in that chilly NWly wind.

Bodes well for tonight's big telly clash I should think - perhaps both can put in a strong performance although I still reckon Frost will come out on top.

Utter nonsense.

8m overnights would be brilliant for a drama going out at 9pm on a snow day opposite
Amanda Holden's Fantasy Lives: Amanda cooks dinner at her home for Michael Winner. (Do you see what I've done there?)

That's true. Sky's pre-match and post-match talk is among the most dull I've ever witnessed so could have dragged the average down quite a bit. Not sure how much waffle the Man Utd v Liverpool game got but probably less as it wasn't quite as important a fixture as this, with less riding on it generally.

I think Simon is good friends with both Piers and Amanda, as he invites them to his house for dinner and socialises with them outside of the show, so I doubt he wants to get rid of them. I do think getting rid of Amanda at least would freshen up the show. Piers is more difficult as he's got a 'golden handcuffs' deal with ITV, and is the nasty British judge on America's Got Talent, so getting rid of him may be more difficult.


I agree, it isn't working, and Kitchen Burnout will not do any better than The Door or Popstar To Operastar, and Paul O'Grady will struggle to top 4m. Moving the entertainment night to Tuesday may be a better idea where they can make an entire night of it from 7.30/8pm rather than just the 9pm hour.


I always find it odd how Doctor Who grows so much whilst it's on air. It's easy to see why entertainment shows do as you can just dip in and out of them but with a drama that is much more difficult and I can't see the appeal of starting to watch a drama halfway through.


Yep, Goblet of Fire premiered to 7.2m on a Sunday against Strictly, so next week's should definately match that at least. Doctor Who should still draw 7m or so though as that's pretty much its core audience and last night's episode went down very well.

Also, ITV want to bring SM:TV Live and CD:UK back to Saturday mornings. Fine, but apparently Jedward are front runners to be hosting it! If they do, record low ratings look very likely.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/show...-TV-shows.html

Good rating for Doctor Who, boosting the remainder of the evening. ITV1 did abysmal really... they'll be counting down the days to Britain's Got Talent.

I suspect Sky Sports 1 was second in its timeslot for the Man U vs Chelsea game behind BBC One, which is pretty good.

seriously? the return of CD:UK is not a big deal, and with the right host no reason it cant work.

However SM:TV Live presented by Jedwood, not even I believe ITV is seriously thinking about that. SM:TV Live is an Ant & Dec show, without them its kinda pointless.

Dare I say it "Sam & Mark" from Pop Idol 2, who have since done some work for CBBC, would be a far better choice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_&_Mark

I also thought 7m was Doctor Who's minimum core audience, but I was looking back at the overnights for 2005-2008 and quite a lot of episodes went sub-7m. In fact, the overnight series averages of those 4 seasons were 7.1m-7.3m. Still good of course, but I think the specials and openers do usually rate much better than most other episodes.

Will be interesting to see if Harry Potter 5 can match the 7.2m it got for its last premiere, as it's got the advantage of not going up against Strictly but it doesn't have an X Factor lead in this time.

SM:TV Live and CD:UK have had their day. Pointless trying to bring them back now, especially with those two presenting!

TV on the main channels has become rather "demographically-focussed" in recent years and my feeling is that the automatic "turning on of the TV to watch BBC/ITV" is now not so automatic for many people.

Hence the ratings that get lower and lower and spread more and more thinly for the "main channels"

Even when both ITV/BBC go away from their female-friendly dancing celebs it produces rather lower figures than you would imagine.

15-minute breakdown: http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/9642/satq.jpg

ITV was only above 4m during the 20:00 to 20:15 period in the entire day.

And you don't think that the increasing number of channels available, and the growing number of ways to watch that output (both live and timeshifted/on-demand/near-time repeats) has nothing to do with it?

the BBC dominated, ITVs Saturday Night line up is an utter failure.

ITVs "stars" Amanda Holden (Tarrant was once a star for ITV) & Piers Morgan's are utter failures, even ITVs real stars Ant & Dec are failing.

Best of Harry Hills TV Burp, is a good sacrificial lamb to go up against Doctor Who.

I note a lot of people complaining about the F1 switch from BBC One to BBC Two today.... I wonder how the BBC Two part will rate in comparison to the Easter Service on BBC One?

The transition was a mess as well. "Almost time to say goodbye... [pause] almost time to say goodbye... [cuts off]" Or something like that.

Then when I turned to BBC Two they were giving all the details about the continued coverage. Bit irrelevant to anybody who had successfully found the button "2" on their remotes by that time!

But to take your point, obviously the F1 will outrate the Easter Service. It doesn't really prove anything though. Is today the biggest day in the F1 calendar? No. Is today the biggest day in the Christian calendar? Absolutely. And the BBC have a duty to reflect that.

The only mistake the BBC made was not running the WHOLE of the Grand Prix on BBC Two, with the MOTD repeat followed by the Easter Service on BBC One.

Interesting comments on todays Headless Chickens Thread. Dont people know that every Easter Saturday rates poorly because many people are away?

The Boat Race did very poorly. I suppose people dont expect sport on a Saturday afternoon on the BBC anymore............ The sponsors must be livid and demanding it is taken back by ITV even if they have to be paid to cover it.

That's not good news for ITV1's Harry Potter premiere then!

(Yesterday was Holy Saturday.)