L&O gets 9% 16-34 and WTD gets 13% though I don't know what the 55+ %s are, it looks like WTD is younger skewed, rzt or DMN probably have better demo info.

Lily Allen: From Riches To Rags opened with 1.3m (8%).

http://www.attentional.com/attentional_blog/blogs/

You're right, it's ridiculous to be even thinking of it. But it occurred to me the other week re launching a second series of Mrs Brown, and also finding a home for Miranda, that BBC1 could launch new series of both with a bang next Christmas Day by going:

8.00 EE
8.30 Miranda
9.00 The Royle Family
10.00 EE
10.30 Mrs Brown

and on successive Sundays thereafter

6.30 CF
7.30 AR [both opposite and head to head with DOI]
8.30 Miranda
9.00 Come Fly With Me s2 [both head to head and a complementary comedy alternative to WAH]
9.30 Upstairs Downstairs s2 [against DOIR]

with Mrs Brown continuing on Saturdays at 10pm before MOTD.

Should TG air on BBC2 next Jan/Feb, then it takes a 7.30pm slot.

However, I think Miranda s3 will air in the autumn in all likelihood. But there could still be a Christmas episode as above.

Oh dear. It's a bit sad thinking this in March isn't it...


The same could be said of The X Factor too. The single biggest age group amongst its viewership is the over 55s too.

It's not a lot more though IMO: 16% vs. 25% which is to be expected when you consider one is a crime drama and another is non-crime so less of an audience crossover. The point though is that it shows that dramas, even well established ones, would get knocked quite a bit going up against WTD when going directly head to head.


While 3-parters are more common, I wouldn't say 6 part series are that rare - in the last three years, BBC1 and ITV1 has launched a total of 23 weeknight 6+ part dramas - only two of them had done well: Ashes to Ashes (which is effectively a follow up of Life on Mars) and Law & Order: UK. Everything else has on the whole rated worse, even against weaker opposition. So that's the reason why L&O keeps coming back - no-one's saying it's a big-hitter or very successful, but from the recent crop of 6-part dramas to have come through on weeknights, it's one of the best performing ones and it generally does a solid enough job. These days it's very rare if you get a drama series on weeknights (a tougher battle ground than Sundays), which can average 6m+ like the old time big hitters like New Tricks, Silent Witness, Midsomer Murders, Waking The Dead, Doc Martin. The only exception is Benidorm out of the recent shows still running, but you can't expect all new shows to be doing that well.


It had 5m and 4.6m against those two shows. Whilst not good, I don't think it's too bad either. A lot of dramas from the last few years have struggled to get 4.5m+ against even weaker competition. I said a few weeks ago when talking about Silk's performances that I think it would be fine even if it fell to ~4.5m because although that's under the "magic 5m" barrier, in reality that's better than what most weeknight dramas from recent years get these days and with timeshift, it'd be above 5m quite comfortably anyway.


Marchlands is the exception to the rule rather than something which would normally happen. It was different from L&O in the sense that it was a well promoted brand new drama series which had a central storyline running across the five episodes (so not as dip in dip out as a procedural). Would Marchlands had got 5.5-6.0m if it was in its 3rd series? I doubt it. I think cylon6 posted a couple of weeks ago that it was ITV's best rated new drama in that slot since 2005 so I bet you ITV won't have another new drama as successful as that one in that slot for another few years, if ever! Because of how (unusually) successful Marchlands was, you can't just compare every other drama airing in the slot against its figures and say they're a flop just because "it didn't rate as well as Marchlands" - we wouldn't do that with dramas airing on Sunday nights and expecting everything to get Sherlock/Downton Abbey/Upstairs Downstairs/Lark Rise style figures, nor should we expect that to be the case on Thursdays.

Whilst Kidnap & Ransom did also launch with ~5.5m, that dropped to 4.7m for episodes 2 and 3 which was only 0.2m higher than what Law & Order: UK was averaging (effectively the same when you consider L&O wasn't fully networked whilst K&R was). K&R was considered a moderate success but can you imagine how much lower K&R would be for its 3rd series after the initial interest had waned? The first series of most dramas are almost always the most popular ones. Monroe started well last week but let's see how its audience holds up before making any definite judgment. Even if it averages something like 5m across its remaining episodes (which I think is unlikely but we'll see), that would be effectively only 0.3m more than what L&O was doing for most of its episodes in that slot last year for its 3rd series.

Junior Doctors had 1.5m on BBC3 last night according to Keir, one of the doctors, on twitter.

That's absolutely brilliant. It's increased every single week so far through good word of mouth and I'm guessing people catching up through iPlayer. Easily now BBC3's most popular fatual programme ever and refreshing to see a documentary series rating so well on multichannel TV. It'll definitely be back for another series following its big success.

Really good and interesting analysis there.

Tuesday 15th March Overnights
BBC One
13:45- Doctors: 1.59m (20.3%)
19:30- EastEnders: 8.65m (37.2%)
20:00- Holby City: 5.91m (25%)
21:00- Silk: 4.91m (20%)

BBC Two
19:00- Wonders Of The Universe: 1.54m (6.8%)
20:00- The Hairy Bikers: Mums Know Best: 2.36m (10%)
21:00- Bible's Buried Secret: 1.65m (6.7%)
22:00- Have I Got Old News For You: 1.07m (5.4%)

ITV1
19:00- Emmerdale: 7.35m (33.5%) , +1: 118k (0.5%)
19:30- Grimefighters: 2.95m (12.7%)
20:00- Lion Country: 2.24m (9.6%)
21:00- Caroline Quentin: A Passage Through India: 2.08m (8.4%) , +1: 105k (0.6%)

Channel 4
17:30- Coach Trip: 1.77m (11.2%) , +1: 178k (0.9%)
18:30- Hollyoaks: 999k (4.8%)
20:00- Gok's Clothes Roadshow: 1.72m (7.3%) , +1: 231k (0.9%)
21:00- Heston's Mission Impossible: 1.74m (7.1%) , +1: 236k (1.3%)
22:00- Lily Allen: From Riches to Rags: 1.34m (8%) , +1: 185k (2.1%)

Channel 5
13:15- Home and Away: 221k (2.8%)
13:45- Neighbours: 786k (10%)
17:30- Neighbours: 1.12m (7.1%)
18:00- Home and Away: 839k (4.5%)
19:30- Extraordinary Dogs: 615k (2.6%)
20:00- Stansted: The Inside Story: 1.08m (4.6%)
21:00- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: 2.22m (9.1%)
22:00- CSI: Miami: 1.24m (6.9%)

Primetime Shares
BBC One: 24.3%
ITV1: 12.4% (+1: 0.4%)
BBC Two: 7.3%
Channel 4: 6.4% (+1: 0.9%)
Channel 5: 5.5%

Ratings include HD and are tape-checked where necessary

Multichannels
BBC Three
21:00- Junior Doctors: Your Life In Their Hands: 1.5m (6.1%)
22:00- EastEnders: 919k (4.6%)

E4
19:00- Hollyoaks: 399k (1.5%) , +1: 106k (0.5%)

Fiver
18:30- Home and Away: 481k (2.3%)

Sources: DS, DS (2)
----------------------------------------------------------
Silk's been very steady this series, I think it's now done enough to be recommissioned. It might take a dip in a couple of weeks time against the England match but its consistent performances so far show that people watching it have been enjoying it and it's done well and deserves another series.

Another disasterous Tuesday night for ITV1. Caroline Quentin's show down compared to last week and Lion Country continues to rate appallingly. Solid evening for Channel 5 with over 1m and 5%+ from 8pm onwards.

Wow @ CSI finishing second in the 9pm slot. Excellent result. Slightly down on last week though in Total People, suggesting multi-channel was the main beneficiary of ITV1's well below par performance.

I'd laugh at the day BBC3 beat ITV1 in the 9pm hour, because that is getting close.

Regarding the Broadcast articles, they seem to work the "usual way" about a day or two after the articles have been published. That's not particularly useful if you want to see the overnights and breaking news immediately but it's still possibly to read them (albeit later than one would hope).

Not much to say about last night really but Tuesdays have always been really poor.

I think it's fair to assume that if BBC1 posted an overnight rating of 2.08m in the 9pm slot in winter for first-run programming featuring a major star, there would be a markedly different tone on this thread...

Odd though that Silk isn't really capitalising. As a lawyer, I don't think it's very good, personally - but you'd think it would get something of a lift by default.

Losing Sandilands will be a blow. Although some people don't like him, I think shows like this need big divisive characters like him at the helm.

I'm surprised it's back at all, even in a reduced capacity. I can't see it suddenly finding life this series after the massive promo and hype it received last year failed to bear fruit.

Everything's bright at Channel Seven at the moment - it's officially their best start to a year ever - only losing two nights of ratings since the 2011 ratings period started. I don't think they really need The X Factor Australia and would be better off investing in some good quality local drama instead.

Talking of which, it's a big week for them next week with heavily trailed new drama Winners & Losers taking the ex-Rafters slot.

For the main channels. In the 9-10pm slot last night there were roughly 12m not watching the big five.

Over half of UK viewers, spend more than half their viewing time, watching multichannels.

I can see why BSkyB have scheduled Sky Living's Katie on Tuesday nights from next week.

It will be a sad day if Katie beats Junior Doctors, but I don't think that's likely thankfully.

yes you'd be blaming schedulers for starters. and lead-ins. and a hundred other things......

PS. Who is this "major star"?

Eh, even the most fervent of ITVista's (as you put it) have been ridiculing ITV's Tuesday night performances for weeks. Some of us are cabable of objectivity.

It's a shambles. The whole night needs a rethink. As a programme, the Caroline Quentin travel log is capable of much better than 2m.

A weak slot for BBC drama and Silk has had very little promotion from the BBC and seemed to be the 'wild card' in their winter drama scheduling deliberations. I've wondered whether it's a Jay Hunt show that Danny Cohen isn't interested in, or a vehicle to show that Maxine Peake could attract a prime time audience (she said as much in an interview). Either way, there doesn't seem to be much commitment to the show.

I hope I'm wrong because it is better than I thought it would be and I think a second series might grow in appreciation and audience.

Does anyone know the AI ?

Silk's AI's:

22/02 - 84
01/03 - 86

(BTW, no surprises for which show still covers the bottom places on the AI list... )

I really like Silk, it's a decent enough drama and it deserves a second series I think.

Thanks. So middling then - just like the audience figures.

The whole Daybreak AI thing is odd because normally the people who don't like the show don't watch and the people who are left are more appreciative. Is that right?

they watch in order to post here about how awful it is

Cue GeorgeS with some tortuous logic about why low AIs are actually good news for Daybreak and ITV.

humour by-pass was a success i see?