Well, absolutely. There's clearly millions we could add from all sorts of different sources. Though I think for comparative purposes that 25.74m for private TV viewership is about as good as we get. And incredibly impressive it is too!

Apparently in the warped world of Mirror Group Newspapers Cowell's shows are on the way out. Funny that they still attract a lot of viewers and BGT is well liked by the fans. I notice when Corrie, which they seem to worship, drops a million nothing is said.

the more part of the press who think that BGT & X-Factor is past it the better we all know media coverage plays a part in there sucess, so without that oxygen of publicity, they may start to shrivel and die.

I dont know if this has been posted or not yet, but TVTongiht is reporting 5.7m peak

http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2011/05/...than-5-7m.html

Just looked back through the thread - and 4.5m for BFGW how on Earth did that happen? Obviously the format is not very repeatable - even though it's only in its 7th (?) episode, the show was already a bit boring I found, I still like it though .

As briefly noted yesterday, BBC iPlayer has split the 08:00 to 13:40 part down into two parts. If BARB do exactly the same in the officials, you will have:

08:00 to 10:00 - 7.34m (54.0%)
10:00 to 13:40 - 16.62m (64.8%)

No matter how it's split both/all three/all four/whatever of BBC's parts will make BBC One's top 30, no question.

All of ITV's parts should make their Top 30, but they maybe lower than the overnights... depending on how many watched on ITV1 HD?

never mind worked it out

A quick comment while watching BGT. I wonder if The Queen might send the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge* to the Royal Variety Performance this year? That might boost ratings?

* That's those two who got married yesterday for the benefit of Charnham!

It's already been confirmed as The Queen this year, but it wouldn't surprise me if thats one of the things passed to William and Kate.

I think yesterday's ratings bode very well for the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics Opening Ceremony - particularly the latter, the build-up to which might even be bigger and because its in peak time should have a huge potential audience.

would you all judge me, if I admitted that I actually needed to be told that? *hides head tortoise like in his t-shirt*

I had no idea.


there is no question that sending Wills & Kate, may help the Royal Variety Preformance, for what its worth the two youth royals are the future, and the more the british population see of them the better the future the Royals have.

It strikes me that Kate is well named, as in Katie Price becuase lets face it I fear Wills & Kate are about to become the new Peter & Kate, only minus the ITV 2 reality show. Their lives played out in the page of celeb magazines, and the discussions of people for whom Kate Price has gotten boring now she has moved to Sky Living.

The household nature of the BARB system surely means that the television ratings don't match the overall sum of interest in the wedding. It won't have counted the number of people who watched on parks and greens and in public places up and down the land. Official estimates are that 0.6m were either lined along the route or in Hyde Park and St James' Park alone. I presume that these numbers of people of which I am one will not have been counted?

Snooker semi-final on BBC2 heading for an exciting finish, looks certain now that Have I Got More News For You is facing a delay.

Thanks for all the figures, rzt - and to all those who post figures from abroad.

Fantastic for the BBC; ok for ITV. BBC1's primetime certainly worked out well with the Wedding highlights and it hurt ITV1 badly.

US primetime ratings including wedding highlights
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/201...ge-rises/91035

CBS highlights top at 8pm. ABC highlights second 18-49 at 9/9.30/10.30 but top at 10pm. NBC highlights 4th in 18-49 at 9pm then 3rd 9.30/10/10.30

EDIT - NBC's programme also included coverage of the Tornado's in the South East US. From TV Newser


http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/...of-news_b64085

if you read what I posted I have said that, those figures can easily take the figure to 50%, and that we will never get a true figure of interest.

My point is that beyond the 50% mark its hard to say how many people were interested, and that 50% does not back up some of the grander claims ive seen.

Yes, but the big football matches will be much worse effected then the Royalty. During every big match, reckon there's about 40 in most pubs. Whilst at 11 on a bank holiday it's not that many more.

Correct. But its not just BARB, it is worldwide. Whether one day it will include a selection of pubs and clubs around the country, who knows.

well that's an invalid comparison. The royal wedding is a state event broadcast by several networks, it's a not a 'show' made for the BBC, like the X-Factor is for ITV. It would be strange if the state broadcaster didn't get the lion's share of the ratings, no matter how dull its coverage was perceived to be.

you really think Cowell will now be plotting how to beat the royal wedding? You're either on a wind-up or a complete weirdo! thank goodness this thread has people like rzt as an antidote to this!

That's an oxymoron if ever I've seen one. Ridiculous a snooker game lasts three times as long as a Royal Wedding - and then comes down to the last half hour anyway. Can't believe someone saw a frame of snooker and thought the one thing to make it better would be to have 30+ frames in a match!

Unlikely, can you imagine how difficult it would be for the landlord to get everyone in the pub to register their age and sex into the set top box.....and then technically, he needs to log them out individually every time they go to the toilet/leave the pub.

Secondly, media buyers aren't interested in buying commercial impacts of people in the pub as they will not be engaged in the ad, and so it would never be allowed to enter the BARB currency.

It's pretty grim. I gave it the benefit of the doubt for the first two weeks as the new judges were settling in and I thought the panel was refreshing and different. The talent has been pretty poor throughout though and apart from the kid tonight and the Matrix guy last week (who was brilliant to be fair) there hasn't been anything particularly good. I couldn't believe it when they were raving about that guy with the guitar tonight (Herbie?), Simon would have buzzed him and said no. I hadn't missed Simon so far but I did tonight.

The Hoff's absence didn't help as I don't think the panel worked with Louis replacing him but even McIntyre wasn't on form tonight (although I understand that the auditions with Louis were filmed first so we've seen him settled in for the last two weeks whereas tonight we were seeing his first few days which may explain it). All in all though it was dire and I dread to think what Simon is going to make of some of the acts they've put through.

I dont think I needed to be called "petty" for making a valid point.

As most people seem to have said ITV's coverage was better, I decided to make a comparison of both BBC1's and ITV1's coverage after the balcony kiss where nothing of note occured and the content of the coverage depended entirely on who could fill the time better. There was no evidence of the BBC's supposedly inferior coverage falling more than ITV's. I was defending the BBC's coverage and not trying to put any negative slant on ITV's figures.

Rzt posted this which he states the ratio was pretty much the same from 14:10, even "marginally" becoming greater in BBC's favour:


For the record, I thought both BBC and ITV coverage was good, the BBC were more formal where as ITV was more informal. Different styles but it doesnt mean one was right and was wrong IMO.

Perhaps petty was slightly harsh but it wasn't a fair comparison as you compared ITV's audience from 13:40 to 16:00 with BBC1's audience from 14:10 to 16:00, basically adding about 1.5m onto ITV's fall. Had you compared both over the same time period from 14:10 to 16:00 you'd have seen a much smaller fall for ITV than the one you highlighted in your comparison here.

It was a genuine mistake, when I first posted I thought they were the same times. They obviously arent but my point still stands about BBC's coverage not falling to the extent as many were predicting.

Fair enough, if it was a genuine mistake then I was wrong to say you were petty and I'm sorry.

I think the BBC's coverage did tremendously well. Of course it fell across the afternoon, that was natural as the main events of the day had been and gone. There was always going to be a drop in the afternoon and I think it's a credit to the BBC that they still had 5m or so viewers watching at the end despite the fact that the events of the day were pretty much over.