With tape-checked ratings, Corrie would be at about 12.4-12.5m for the week. In the officials, Corrie usually timeshifts more than EastEnders so the gap between itself and EE for the whole week average for the two anniversaries will be bigger.

Incidentally, D.M.N. is Corrie's weekly overnight average 12.0m or 12.1m? I calculated 12.09m (12.1m to 1 d.p).

Looks like Kerry Katona isn't such a big success for ITV2 as Katie Price was in her first series, 600k against 1.8m for Katie and Peter. However, she hasn't been hyped as much, tending to fade out of view for considerable periods, so this isn't surprising.
I often wonder if Jade Goody was still alive, if she would have her own ITV2 show.

EastEnders figures are artifically boosted by a live episode that drew in 5m people who couldn't be bothered to watch the next episode. In comparison, Coronation Street only drew in around 2m extra for the live.

Take the live episode boosts out of the equation and the averages are:

EastEnders - 10.56m
Coronation Street - 11.75m

A difference of 1.19m.

(I hope I've done the maths right! )

If you insist...

EastEnders - 25th Anniversary
15/02 - 10.4m (39.6%)
16/02 - 10.5m (41.8%)
18/02 - 10.8m (41.5%) - 1 hour
19/02 - 14.9m (54.6%) - live
Average = 11.7m (44.4%)

Coronation Street - 50th Anniversary
06/12 - 12.1m (46.1%)
06/12 - 13.7m (48.3%)
07/12 - 11.8m (42.6%)
08/12 - 12.0m (48.7%)
09/12 - 14.0m (52.0%) - 1 hour, live
10/12 - 11.5m (47.9%)*
10/12 - 11.6m (45.0%)*
Average = 12.4m (47.2%)

All ratings are overnights and tape-checked apart from Corrie's Friday ratings, which have a star next to them.

Ah yes, it is 12.1m, apologies.

600,000 would be better, but still not befitting the shows 50 year domanince


the ITV 2, Kerry Katona show kinda snuck up on the scheuldes, no one really knew it was coming.

As for Jade Goody, its possible she might have had a ITV 2, but its also possible she would still be in a contract with Living, so unless ITV 2 poached her, like Living did Katie, its possible that both Jordan and Jade would have been on Sky Living in 2011.

I've amended it to make it a fairer comparison.

Corrie celebrated its 50th anniversary with a week-long splurge of episodes relating to the night of the explosion/crash.

EastEnders celebrated its 25th anniversary with a one-off live episode.

You are not comparing like with like.

take the live episodes out, and we might as well not bother.


I wasnt expecting you to post all the data, but thanks for doing so.

BBC1 was in quite a tough place in regards to Strictly Come Dancing. They obviously wanted to do a two dance stage plus swingathon but didn't have the time to air it on Saturday night. For me, they should've aired 6-8pm and let ITV schedule around it rather than buckling and airing an hour last night. Still, it did well and was going to dip against Coronation Street's Big 50. Coronation Street itself did ok, though has dropped 2.5m from the live episode (slightly more than the 2m I said above). I guess it'll slowly drop down to around 10m but the producers will be hoping the week has drawn in some veiwers long term. EastEnders did well and The One Show posted a great figure at 7pm despite not really hurting Emmerdale.

So a series LOW for Strictly last night then. Robbie must be worried that without the pantomine audience SCD is losing it!

Robbie, perversely, does have a point. I suppose it's really not fair to compare the two. EastEnders focused on promotion of one episode, so it's not fair to do live v live as (as most people who didn't have hidden agendas on here) EastEnders was going to win because of it's focus. In the same way, Coronation Street was always going to win the week because of that focus. Both succeeded in their aims.

But I'll argue until I'm blue in the face that the EastEndres live episode aritifcially boosted EastEnders weekly figure and, as shown by removing the live episodes, Coronation Street has been much more consistent.

No, just relieved that George Dixon is finally on his way out and crazy scheduling decisions like this might hopefully become a thing of the past.

As Fudd says, they should have aired a 1.5h/2h show tonight and let ITV sort themselves out.

Didn't BBC promote EastEnders 25th as a week? Because I remember the special ident and the EastEnders 25th Anniversary titles starting on the Monday.

I dont disagree that, that happened, but you cant say that one mesaure is wrong, and that another measure would be better, then for that mesure to not give you quite the results you were hoping for, so you take out some data you dont like, until you find something to fit what you want to say.

As for week long story arc over big event for the Live episode, at the end of the day, those were choices made by both the BBC & ITV, so the differnce in storyline over the week, does not make the differnce in ratings irrelvant, both soaps could have done what the other did. Choices were made, that effected the ratings.

I think they pushed the Live Episode a lot more than ITV did with Coronation Street, though.

Not as far as I recall, no.

They promoted the 25th anniversary, of course, but the focus was a one-off live episode revealing "who killed Archie".

ITV promoted a week-long series of special "four funerals and a wedding" disaster story episodes.

a specail ident that was used afterwards for a few months.

True. I guess at the end of the day, for all our debating on here both BBC and ITV got what they wanted. BBC1 got the big rating and the hype of number 1 soap of 2010. ITV1 got the advertising cash from a more consistent performance through the week (and no doubt got more for a batch of 12m episodes than they would've done for a load of 10.5m plus a 15m).

Just to reinforce how far ahead The X Factor is ahead of Coronation Street (regardless of gross ratings numbers) a 30 second spot on Coronation Street was going for £100k on Thursday versus a 30 second spot on The X Factor for £200k tonight.

My predictions:

SCD: 11m - this is definitely going to be down from last week's 12m due to the earlier slot and no Widdy left in it. In the week when it finished relatively early due to the Festival of Remembrance, it had 10.7m, I think it'll rate quite similar to that figure, perhaps slightly higher due to it being the semi final.

JLS: 4.5m - Cheryl's Night In in the pre-TXF final slot had 5m so I expect this to rate worse considering JLS aren't as "big" a name as Cheryl and also it's airing one hour earlier against a stronger SCD than last year.

TXF: 14m - I am not expecting much of a boost for TXF tonight compared to last Saturday; the big boost will happen tomorrow. Last year's final Saturday show rated the same as the semi final Saturday show. Also 7pm is the earliest start for TXF this series which might catch some people out.

TMO: 6.5m - the highest rating for this in the first series was 5.1m. I believe TXF boosts shows around it by 15-25% so assuming it's a 25% boost I think it'll be in the mid 6's, however I wouldn't be surprised with a low 7's result.

Let's hope ITV use the money wisely instead of chucking it at share holders and reality junk.

Low for Strictly last night, but it was a bit odd to have it in that slot and the opposition was very solid. I agree they should have just scheduled it tonight. I'm sure ITV would've bumped back half an hour to miss it. We'll wait for tonights numbers before judging how losing Widdecombe impacts ratings. It'll clearly be down by some way because of the earlier start, but we'll see what sort of peak it builds to.

Excellent for Corrie yesterday, to cap an excellent week. I'll be interested to compare next weeks numbers to those posted last week - so see if there's been an overall impact. You'd think it should be a million up.

Thanks DMN


You are so sadly desperate aren't you - I don't recall the Corrie fans being as bitter as we've seen from some of the EE lot this week, but then again, why would they be of something of such little significance.



Exactly - and they had the extended episode on the Thursday too.

that is fair.

I think its also safe to say that Corrie took the prize, for "silliest headline"

This is they key one for ITV (apart from the obvious X Factor figures). Its interesting that in the US the Superbowl lead in usually goes to a 2nd season show rather than a brand new show. Interesting that ITV are copying this approach with the UK's Superbowl.