Worth noting the soaps may be down on their 'normal' March Monday night ratings this week due to Blackburn v Chelsea on Sky Sports 1. Particularly Eastenders, which seems to be hit the most as it shares the younger demos.



Brilliant movie rating for Channel 4 on Saturday - their highest Saturday rating in a long, long time apart from Big Brother. I doubt they expected it to do that well otherwise it would have been put out on a Sunday I imagine. I'm sure it will offer good repeat value too.


Channel 4 top programs of 2011 so far:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- C4 -------------- C4 +1 ----------- C4 Official
01: Big Fat Gypsy Weddings 08/02/11 --------- 7.5m (29.2%) ------- 711k --------------- 8.80m
02: Embarrassing Bodies 04/02/11 -------------- 3.6m (14.9%) -------- 587k --------------- 4.17m
03: FILM premiere: Taken 05/03/11 ------------ 3.2m (14.3%) -------- 505k --------------------------
04: Shameless 10/01/11 ------------------------------ 3.1m (15.8%) -------- 355k --------------- 4.05m
05: FILM: premiere: Iron Man 2/01/11 --------- 3.0m (12.1%) -------- 561k --------------- 3.39m
06: The Real King's Speech 23/02/11 ---------- 2.8m (11.3%) -------- 265k --------------- 3.31m
07: One Born Every Minute 14/02/11 ----------- 2.8m (11.1%) -------- 374k --------------- 3.44m
08: Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2010 3/01/11 ---- 2.7m (12.9%) -------- 400k -------------- 3.34m
09: Mary Portas: Secret Shopper 19/01/11 -- 2.7m (11.1%) -------- 349k --------------- 3.36m
10: Million Pound Drop 04/02/11 ----------------- 2.6m (14.2%) ------ ~180k --------------- 2.79m
11: Britain's Fattest Man 5/01/11 ----------------- 2.6m (11.3%) -------- 334k --------------- 3.01m


Last year's chart for comparison (there were no new entries after that post).

C4 and C4 +1 are overnight ratings, C4 official are from the Barb website.
All overnight ratings are averages for the full slot running time, rounded to 1 decimal place.
Shows are ranked in order of overnight ratings.
Each show only gets one mention in the list.
Come Dine With Me would chart in 2011 ~ 2.6m but don't have exact rating

A big win for Law & Order UK last night....5.6m, against 2.9m for the M/way Cops repeat

Bet some at ITV are breathing a sigh of relief right now, does that include HD and +1?

2.9 million more than it deserves. These cheap 'following someone in their job' shows are bad enough, especially in peak time, but when they then repeat them in peak time, they deserve to bomb.

Monday 7th March Overnights
BBC One
06:00- Breakfast: 1.6m (35.0%)
18:00- BBC News at Six: 4.7m (24.9%)
18:30- Regional News and Weather: 6.1m (29.2%)
19:00- The One Show: 4.9m (22.6%)
19:30- Inside Out: 3.9m (16.7%)
20:00- EastEnders: 9.3m (36.7%)
20:30- Smoking and the Bandits - Panorama: 3.0m (11.8%)
21:00- Motorway Cops: 2.9m (11.7%)
22:00- BBC News at Ten: 4.5m (22.4%)
22:35- Mrs Brown's Boys: 2.92m (19.8%)

BBC Two
18:00- Eggheads: 2.3m (12.0%)
18:30- Royal Upstairs Downstairs: 1.8m (8.8%)
19:00- Parents Under Pressure: 0.9m (3.8%)
20:00- University Challenge: 2.9m (11.6%)
20:30- Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets: 2.1m (8.2%)
21:00- When Teenage Meets Old Age: 1.46m (5.8%)
* series average: 1.66m (6.65%)
22:00- Never Mind the Buzzcocks: 1.2m (6.1%)
22:30- Newsnight: 0.7m (4.8%)

ITV1 (inc ITV+1)
06:00- Daybreak: 0.8m (18.8%)
08:30- Lorraine: 1.1m (21.0%)
18:30- ITV News & Weather: 4.0m (19.1%)
19:00- Emmerdale: 7.9m (35.8%)
19:30- Coronation Street: 9.9m (41.5%)
20:00- The Lakes: 3.9m (14.9%)
20:30- Coronation Street: 9.6m (37.4%)
21:00- Law & Order: UK: 5.57m (21.9%)
* excluding +1: 5.49m
21:00- ITV News at Ten & Weather: 2.7m (13.4%)

Channel 4 (inc C4+1)
18:00- The Simpsons: 1.9m (8.0%)
18:30- Hollyoaks: 1.2m (5.5%)
19:00- Channel 4 News: 0.7m (3.0%)
20:00- Dispatches: Selling Off Britain: 0.9m (3.3%)
21:00- One Born Every Minute: 2.84m (10.0%)
* excluding +1: 2.51m
22:00- Borat: 0.8m (5.0%)

Channel 5
17:00- 5 News at 5: 0.7m (5.4%)
17:30- Neighbours: 1.2m (7.8%)
18:00- Home and Away: 1.0m (5.1%)
18:30- OK! TV: 0.4m (2.0%)
19:00- 5 News at 7: 0.2m (1.0%)
19:30- How Do They Do It?: 0.8m (3.2%)
20:00- The Gadget Show: 1.1m (4.4%)
21:00- Royal Navy: Caribbean Patrol: 1.36m (5.4%)
* series average: 1.85m (7.44%)
* above slot average of: 1.3m (5.04%)

Ratings include HD where necessary

Multichannels
BBC Three
21:00- How to Live With Women: 390,200 (1.6%)
00:15- How to Live With Women: 222,800 (5.9%)

BBC Four
20:00- The Story of Variety with Michael Grade: 204,000 (0.77%).
21:00- The Story of Variety with Michael Grade: 533,700 (2.1%)
* above slot average of: 360,000 (1.38%)
22:00- The Story of Light Entertainment: 441,700 (2.9%)
22:00- EastEnders: 685,500 (3.4%)

Dave
21:30- Have I Got News For You: 335k

E4
21:00- Glee: 1.39m (5.56%) , +1: 250,000 (1.42%)
22:00- Great British Hairdresser: 317,400 (1.8%) , +1: 100,000 (1.12%)
* below slot average of: 375,000 (1.93%)

Film4 (inc. +1)
19:15- Doctor Dolittle: 175k
21:00- Terms of Endearment: 202k

Gold (inc. +1)
20:00- Rock & Chips: 126k
22:00- Outnumbered: 146k

ITV2
21:00- Hell’s Kitchen USA: 408,100 (1.6%) , +1: 108,400 (0.61%)
22:00- Celebrity Juice: 435,600 (2.3%) , +1: 76,500 (0.77%)

More4 (inc. +1)
19:45- Grand Designs: 559k

Sky1
21:00- Ross Kemp: Extreme World: 533,300 (2.1%)

Sky Arts 1
21:00- Songbook: 7,200 (0.03%)
* above slot average of: 5,600 (0.02%)

Sky Living
21:00- America’s Next Top Model: 266,700 (1.1%)
22:00- Bedlam: 248,400 (1.4%)

Yes, so probably 5.4m in the 9pm hour? Considering it has no competition it's still a big improvement on it's last run.

Anything for Vanessa in her new slot?
(Please be less, please be less )

People were asking how the 5pm slot is rating, now that The Weakest Link, The Chase and Come Dine with Me have gone to repeats. Yesterday's 5pm slot ratings were:

BBC1
Newsround 0.7m (5.8%)
The Weakest Link 1.7m (11.7%)

BBC2
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is 2.1m (13.8%)

ITV1 (inc ITV+1)
The Chase 2.5m (17.4%)

C4 (inc C4+1)
Come Dine with Me 2.2m (15.1%)
Coach Trip 1.8m (9.6%)

The repeats of The Chase and Come Dine with Me are rating nearly as well as the new episodes were. Looks like ITV made the right choice moving The Alan Tichmarsh Show back to 3pm because even repeats of the Chase are doing at least half a million more than what original airings of TATS were rating.

Poor for Motorway Cops last night. The last repeat did 3.5m on a Wednesday opposite a big episode of Midsomer Murders, so I expected a similar figure last night. Looks like BBC One are having trouble finding suitable filler with both this and New Tricks down into the 2's for their recent reruns, precisely at a time when more repeats are needed in prime.

Law and Order: UK did slightly better than I expected. I think these figures show it got a bit unlucky with the scheduling last year, but the beauty of a show like this as ITV are learning is it doesn't particularly matter that people missed episodes, they will soon come back if there is little in the way of competition. Having said that next week will be a real test for it up against part 2 of Waking The Dead and if I'm being honest, I don't fancy its chances much against that BBC powerhouse, so its ratings success on Mondays could be shortlived.

Elsewhere last night, solid figure for the last in the series of Old Age. Very touching programme, shame it didn't do a bit more. Royal Navy was also down for the series finale, but perhaps some plan to watch on Sunday. Overall it has done very well with an overnight series average of 1.9m.

Glee's still comfortably ahead of everything else on multichannel, athough looking at the ratings for Hairdresser they have made a mess of the lead-out this time. Solid for Hell's Kitchen USA to still be going so strong after so many seasons, it's a reliable ratings puller for ITV2 in a tough timeslot. Bedlam recovered slightly from last week's shocking low, but I'm not convinced it has done enough for a recommission. It does timeshift well though so that is in its favour.

I don't think 5.49m is exactly stellar considering the woeful opposition. But really, what are the BBC playing at gifting big wins on a silver platter to ITV on both Friday and Monday nights?

Are they mad?

Waking the Dead will offer stiffer competition, obviously, next week. But I don't expect the Sunday episode of WTD to do all that well (6m tops) given the WAH/DOI competition and head-start - so there will be a sizeable ITV audience at 9pm Monday who won't have seen WTD pt1 so will default-view Law and Order instead. I think both WTD and L&O will be much of a muchness next Monday, say 5.8m WTD and 5.3m L&O.

Mrs Brown's Boys inching towards 3 million. As Inside Out is English regions only I assume the 3.9 includes opt-outs in the national regions probably bringing it down to 3.6 million but still a good figure.

Thanks rzt- solid night for ITV1. L&O needed to premiere with a strongish rating, because it will inevitably fall into the 4m barrier next week. Another decent night for all the soaps too.

Not surprised Motorway Cops flopped. It deserved to-I don't even think Ch5 would repeat one of their cheap police shows in a high profile 9pm slot in March. Surely they had a one off documentary or something on the shelf?

Huge dip for Royal Navy- I can only assume its audience was shared with L&O quite a bit.

Have you any figures for how Home & Away and The Vanessa Show are doing in their new afternoon slots rzt? Thanks.

I don't think WTD is quite the "BBC powerhouse" it was.

Sure, it once got 8-9m or more, but it has tended towards the 5.5-6m level more recently. Presumably why the Beeb won't keep paying a king's ransom to Trevor Eve to keep it going.

Yep, 300k on the week is good at those levels.

I still think it's wasted in the 10.35pm Monday slot. Should be on at 10pm Saturdays before MOTD. Could be getting 4-5m there.

Do we have any official ratings for ep 1 to see how many timeshifted - it won't be in the BBC1 Top 30, obviously.

Well, two BBC dramas recently - Lark Rise to Candleford and South Riding - have averaged 6m+ against Wild at Heart/Dancing on Ice recently so I don't see why an established powerhouse like Waking the Dead can't manage that too. As for next Monday, the drop for Law & Order: UK will surely be more than just the 0.2m you're expecting given that Waking The Dead will rate 3m+ better than what Motorway Cops did last night. So I expect L&O to be down into the 4's next week.


The lowest rated episode of Waking The Dead last series was 6.1m. I don't think it has fallen down to 5.5-5.8m apart from when it faced Lewis, which at the time was very popular (still is, but it was really popular in its 1st series IIRC).

Thanks for these 5pm figures. Looks like viewers largely aren't noticing the repeats as the audience spread looks largely the same as it was the last time we saw these figures.

Poor for The Weakest Link though.

Looking forward to this:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...4#post48629254

Wonder if the second series will manage similarly good ratings to the first?

Are the weakest Link all repeats? I thought the BBC mixed up old and new across the week.

According to Digiguide there are two repeats this week, Tuesday and Friday (in SD). The other three are new episodes in HD.

Law and Order returned strongly but I bet next week it'll be dented by Waking the Dead. OBEM is still doing strongly for Channel 4 while Royal Navy was down but still good for Channel 5.

Mrs Brown's Boys was up from last week, I think it will hit 3m soon. Last night's episode was hilarious!

any news Channel 5's new afternoon schedule?

Oh right - I just assumed that Weakest Links was all repeats at the moment. If yesterday's episode was indeed a new one, then that's a pretty bad rating for it.

Digital Spy says that:

"Home and Away pulled in 190k (2.9%) on Channel 5 from 2.15pm"

But H&A is no longer airing in that timeslot, so I'm not sure if that rating is for Vanessa or H&A at 1:15pm.

Neighbours had 649k (9.8%) at 1:45pm.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/ne...p-march-7.html

The last series of Waking the Dead (2009) averaged 7.2m (officials)

ok a few points

it is true that international versions of the shows do not have Cowell, but actually X-Factor is not the global hit that Idol has been, and also they started with Cowell, they didnt have him and then loose him, its a subtle but important differnce.

Would ITV drop the show without him judging, well im sure they wont want to, but if it proves less succesful they might have to.

There is still the point ITV seemed to have signed a big money contract with Cowell, but have not got him to sign on the dotted line to judge X-Factor, this is a mistake, we do know that he was talking about skipping the year to focus on the US X-Factor, so maybe that will happen, or at least he skips the auditions.

re: Waking the Dead , nice ratings for a final series, not going to make it easy for the show that has to replace it.

Back to The C Word, this is exactly the kind of US drama, More4 should be looking at, and they should be looking at keeping it exculsive, as im sure Sky Atlantic would love to air it after a couple of series.

I suspect that with so many four-letter words even a 10pm slot might be a bit early for BBC1, particularly on Saturdays which is a ''family viewing'' night. What time did RTE screen it, anyone know ?