Really interesting, thanks. Last week it was 3.4% so that's a massive increase week-on-week. Nemo probably helped as well but a lot of that must be down to DSB. It seems among women 16-34 it did particularly well, netting an 8.7% all hours share in that demo. For comparison BBC One had 9.1%, ITV1 had 5.3%.

So I think on the basis of that it had the desired effect. The main two channels are simply not catering for young adults on Sunday night with the one off exception of POTC last night, so Five will be more than happy to be plugging that gap.

Please tell me the last non crime drama that runs for 5/6 episodes that consistently gets 5.5m/6m. The only one I can think of is Wild at Heart and Benidorm.

I don't think it's possible to talk about Heartbeat without considering demos though, is it?

What happens when BBC1 runs a similar drama versus Heartbeat? Which it will do for most of its usual run?

If you think Heartbeat will consistently get 6.0m across the summer I'll take that bet! Countryfile next week will take it down by several million.

It will probably drop yes, to about 5.0m, but at the end of the day, 5 million is higher than a lot of shows, excluding the soaps, get on ITV nowadays.

Think you need to cool your boots. What you're saying is just your opinion. You state it like it's face.

Remember though it's not about ratings, it's about revenue. The trouble is although something like say the celebrity travelogues will only bring in 3-4m, they're probably more cost-effective for ITV.

It's fair to say really ITV has had to adjust it's business model quite dramatically for ITV1 in the last few years. It can no longer be pushing out new dramas most nights of the week in the hope of bringing 6-8m viewers. Outside of it's big hitters it's kind of had to adjust to being a channel with a potential audience of just 3-5m really.

I don't see your point George except obviously you have to defend ITV's cock up. People have said with appropriate scheduling it would be capable of those figures 6m or even a bit higher. Last night it was lucky with scheduling. The Corrie lead in also helps it. Of course it will drop slightly against tougher BBC oppositon but if they actually run it as a proper series instead of taking it off every five minutes it would probably stabilise at 5.5m or so.

The grannies love it. May not be attractive to advertisers but channel credibility and versatility has to come into play at some point. It even outperformed pensioner favourite Corrie last night.

But is 5m enough for a drama? Kingdom didn't get recommissioned either and Heartbeat's demo's won't be any better than that.

Do you really think that Heartbeat adds to ITV1's credibility as a channel? A mediocre show with an aged profile, that basically only gets watched by viewers who are afraid to venture outside of 1 and 3 on their remotes. It does nothing for either credibility or versatility - the only thing it adds is overall ratings.

I think it is depending on how much costs to produce. Not like many ITV dramas or shows full stop get 5m is it? If they were commissioning replacement programming that got that I could see the point.

As for demos isn't Corrie watched by an ageing/older audience yet that's the network's flagship and must rake in some pile of profit somehow.

I think the older viewers have a right to be catered for though on some level. I'd imagine it's very popular with that OAP audience. Maybe not lucrative but it gives them a reason to tune into ITV1. They probably wouldn't otherwise.

Ratings for Kingdom did dip though last year, see the overnight ratings:

- 4.9m (19%)
- 4.5m (21%)
- 4.6m (20%)
- 4.8m (21%)
- 4.6m (20%)
- 4.8m (21%)

Hell, were Heartbeat and Taggart even given any advertising for last night?

Do the Overnights on Channel 4's website include +1 ?

it would also boost ITV's shares which would make the channel more attractive to advertisers, so whilst not directly making that much profit, it would still be paying its way.

I think older viewers do need to be catered to as well, but I don't think that it's necessarily in ITV's best interests to do that by airing a commercially inefficient hour-long drama in peak time on a Sunday evening.

I don't think it would. It would boost their overall share, but would have a negative effect on their 16-34 share, which would make the channel seem less attractive to advertisers.

I don't want to be overly melodramatic, but I think that 1.5million is an absolute disaster for 'Don't Stop Believing' considering the amount of promo, and the roping in of fairly big stars to present and judge the show. I watched the show and was unimpressed and decided not to watch again, but I thought that it would at the very least muster 2m for the first show. If others like me were unimpressed (and judging by other threads there's a fair few) this could sink dramatically in the coming weeks probably to under a million....

And what's perhaps the real kick in the teeth for Five is that at the end of Finding Nemo they had 1.9mil and managed to lose viewers for what has been their most promoted show in years...

Actually they had 2.3m viewers at the end of Finding Nemo, but that's by the by.

Five have gone fairly heavy with DSB, but it's far from their most heavily promoted show in years. FlashForward was a much bigger campaign, as was Neighbours - I'd put this on the same sort of level as Live From Studio Five.

I think 1.5m is on the lower side of what they could have expected, but I think if they'd beaten 2m for it, that would have been an unexpectedly exceptional result.

We should be getting some BARB officials later, yes?

I agree with xfactorfan27 above, not to sound very negative, but yesterday DSB promotion was all over the nespapers like a rash, they had much more news about that than any other shows in the TV show section. And with all that hype it got 1.5m, I doubt the audience will increase, I think it will get around 1.1m and stabalise at around that, if it goe sunder 1m then its pretty bad.

It could be the curse of Britania High... they hyped it so much, billbowards, ads, newsspaper and radio coverage... it debuted at around 3.6m then continue dgoing down... and it flopped. And for an ITV Sunday show, people expected 5m+ throughout the run.

Shows on Five that ISN'T CSI and its spin offs are bound to flop, most of them do.
Flashforward was on a roll for the first 4 weeks and then plummeted.

CSI is the flagship of Five, as EE is for BBC1, BGT and XF is for ITV and BB is for C4. CSI is the only Five Show which actually has a chance of beating the othe rterristerial channels. Anything that is not CSI will probably flop.

Is it really that expensive to make though? It's filmed in the same place, same actors etc, they make a substantial no. of eps at the same time.

Have you ever watched an episode of Heartbeat? it looks like it's made on a shoestring budget. Their biggest expense is probably on royalty rights for the 60s music.

There is a trend that shows always do better on their first episode then go down as well. Five will be hoping it stays around the 1.5m level and that it doesn't go under a million which would be a real disaster for it If it had started with 2m then dropped to 1.5m over its run it would be a hit for them but a 1.5m starting point is tricky for them as it can't really afford to lose *any* viewers now. Not if they're to justify all that fanfare.

Well we all tuned into DSB as a family on 3 different tvs and we have all said it was drivel and will not be tuning in again!!

Yes..

But as well as the actual cost of the show, there's the value of the airtime that it goes out in - if ITV can make more money with a cheaper show in the same slot, then why should they continue to put Heartbeat there?