Hmm, bit of an odd night really. The weather clearly had an affect, but some shows were down much more than others. Very poor ratings for The One Show and Paul O'Grady. I can't remember the last time the former was below 3m and the latter had a severe week on week drop. Not sure quite what happened there as the weather can't have affected it that much as it was 9pm. Maybe the Bank Holiday affected it more than HIGNFY, which was steady week on week. However that still seems a bit low for HIGNFY which is usually above 5m so something's pulling that down too. OK for The Million Pound Drop but I expected a bit more, but it did dent Norton. Maybe ITV's Take Me Out repeat nicked a few 16-34s from it?

Everything about 1m down last night it seems, presumably due to it being a very warm start to a Bank Holiday weekend

The One Show below 3m rather than below 4m, (any rating for the lazy repeat?)

EE & CS around 7m rather than around 8m, ED less than 6m for one of the first times this year.

Opposite-Soap Fillers in the 2m area rather than 3m

Tonight's early schedule will really suffer. Doctor Who will still do ok in terms of millions, but lower than it can do. Scare/Hare, Sing/Can and Think/Dance will all flop in spectacular terms. Although the lead in and out of Doctor Who and BGT may hold some of them up a bit.

Looking ahead to tonight, I fear for Doctor Who in that 6pm slot. It's just awful scheduling. All of its previous launches have had 8m+ overnights, but there's no chance of that happening tonight. To further that, with Doctor Who being dented massively it isn't going to give SYTYCD a brilliant lead in, which renders the move pointless. Over on ITV, I can see March of The Dinosaurs performing disastrously with sub-2m. SIYC will take a big drop and I think BGT could be on for its lowest rating in quite some time. Some predictions:

Don't Scare The Hare: 2.4m
Doctor Who: 6.2m
So You Think You Can Dance: 3.7m
Who Dares Wins: 4.0m
So You Think You Can Dance: Results: 3.2m
Casualty: 5.4m

March of The Dinosaurs: 1.7m
Sing If You Can: 4.0m
Britain's Got Talent: 8.5m
Piers Morgan's Life Stories: 3.7m

You get more of a casual viewer for magazine style shows who are more likely to not watch tv in good weather

Hollyoaks: 644k (4.0%) just on Channel 4

Its second lowest ever 6:30pm rating, slightly ahead of an episode last year which had 640k (4.3%) on 4th June, although yesterday's share was lower.


The One Show rpt - 0.77m (9.2%) - won its slot against the main 5 terrestrials, although multichannel could have just edged it out somewhere (Family Guy maybe)

This looks like it being the lowest ever Easter ratings.
I myself am also getting fed up with TOS on BBC one maybe it needs a rest.

But yet they go and put another repeat on.
And last night after 12AM TV was just terrible with The Zone coming on yet again when ITV could have put a movie on.

I really feel for Doctor Who, its too sunny (not the BBCs fault) and on too early (the BBCs fault)

anyone know how The Runaway on Sky1 has been doing?

As a general rule of thumb it tends to be that the serial programs like soaps and dramas (inc Dr Who) increase their share but decrease their rating during hot weather; whereas the casual programs like The One Show or BBC News tend to decrease their rating and decrease their share.

The reason being: the act of everyone tuning in for the serial programs artificially increases their share because although the ratings for the serial program have dropped, the total TV audience relative to the serial program, dropped much further, as the casual viewers would not make a special point of tuning in for the casual programs.

Another factor that could assist would be timeshift - people are much more likely to timeshift a serial program and therefore increase its share more relative to everything else. And by timeshift I mean before 2am so it would be included in overnight ratings.

This is only a general trend though not an exclusive rule (the effect was much more pronounced on Thursday's ratings), just look at Hollyoaks last night, its share dived off a cliff!

Around 860k in the officials for the Thursday showing (repeats and Sky2 showings will add more).

Stacking them up on the Sky+, to watch in one go. Is it good?

I assume the promos have been 'green buttoned' for Sky viewers?

If I were ITV I think I'd give it a second shot. They've done very well in recent months in rebuilding their drama portfolio (I guess a lot of that can be put down to axing The Bill), and surely having most of them as returning series next year can only strengthen their image. I'd have thought too from a cost factor a second series is surely cheaper per episode to make than a first considering the set-up costs would be much lower - though of course it's stars may get somewhat greadier.


As for last night - serves the channels right for not bothering to differentiate Good Friday from any other Friday. I suspect BBC1 could have stuck an Indian Jones repeat on from 8.30pm and done better!

Also as we have the annual debate about Doctor Who being too early, once again Corrie's 7.30pm edition tops the 8.30pm slot. I think Doctor Who might surprise a few tonight - after all nobody expected anything of Mamma Mia a couple of weeks ago in similarly hot weather. I do think though the BBC might be wise to have a quick turn around repeat of Doctor Who on BBC3 on Saturdays - say at 8.15pm.

BBC Three & BBC HD was airing Raiders of the Lost Ark at 7.10pm last night. I wonder what the rating was for last night. I also see next Friday both channels are airing Temple of Doom in the same slot.

Some shocking news - The writer of Only Fools and Horses and it's spin off's has died! .

I hope the BBC does some tribute show for the writer of one of the greatest and most popular BBC programme ever.

Maybe in the 20:00 slot before the new episode of Rock & Chips on Thursday?

No more episodes of Only fools then
The writer is brilliant and will be missed

Anne Robinson is stepping down from The Weakest Link. And, as a result, the show is AXED.

A poor night all round really. TOS posting what must be on of it's worst ever ratings?! EE did well to top the day especially on Good Friday. Corrie low and there was no announcement at the end of the second episode about an extra episode this week, on Sunday. Probs looking around 6m for that episode I would imagine. PoG did poor too. HO must be a massive worry for C4 now. I reckon it will be axed to moved to E4 by the end of the year.

As for tonight I think DW is going to struggle. Easter weekend, nice weather with a terrible slot. What are the BBC playing at? I think it will get at least 6m, but when all the other series have launched with 8.0m+ it's not going to be good news for the show. However it will timeshift well. The final official rating will be interesting.

Yes there was.
They shown a clip of those 2 gay guys and a baby in London across the theme tune of the 8:30 ep and said Sunday at 7:30pm

Regarding DW how could the BBC possibly have known we would be in the middle of an Heatwave.
Last April it was snowing and very cold

I thought it had been axed years ago and we were just watching repeats.

You were watching Coronation Street? Did you lose your remote??

Na we have it on from time to time.
Infact yesterday i saw all soaps bar Hollyoaks

true but 6pm will hurt the show, no matter what the weather is, its too early for Doctor Who, which IMO should be 7pm

There was no clip?! It just played the theme tune and there was no one speaking over it saying was was coming up next etc. Unless there was a trailer after the episode had finished? I'd switched off by that point.

As for DW. I know the BBC obviously didn't know about the weather. But launching a new series in a 6pm timeslot is ridiculous!

TBH the show was coming to the end of its life and she has done the right thing. Can we also hope Noel Edmonds can quit Deal or No Deal, which has become an overexposed bore?

LOL i thought that too..... dont worry i'm sure it will be repeated forever.