BBC One
19:00 Countryfile 5.24m (23.2%)
20:00 Antiques Roadshow 6.55m (26.6%)
21:00 Case Histories 5.42m (20.9%)

BBC Two
14:00 French Open Men's Final 2.33m (16.8%)
18:15 Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections 1.47m (7.5%)
19:15 Top Gear rpt 1.8m (7.8%)
20:15 Murray Walker: Life in the Fast Lane 1.62m (6.5%)
21:15 Coast 1.89m (7.4%)
22:15 The Damned United rpt 1.12m (7.7%)

ITV1
19:00 The Royal 4.61m (20.4%)
20:00 Popstar to Operstar 4.36m (17.1%)
21:00 Scott & Bailey 6.14m (23.6%)
22:00 Popstar to Operstar Result 3.28m (15.5%)

Channel 4
17:50 Home Alone 2: Lost in New York 1.96m (9.6%)
20:00 The Hotel 1.61m (6.5%)
21:00 Role Models 1.79m (7.8%)

Channel 5
19:00 Cricket on 5: England v Sri Lanka 0.51m (2.3%)
20:00 Shanghai Noon 1.15m (4.6%)
22:00 Rambo 1.31m (8.3%)

BBC Three
22:00 All New Family Guy 0.98m (4.4%)
22:25 All New Family Guy 1.32m (7.2%)

Primetime Shares
BBC One 21.9%
ITV1 19.3% (+1: 0.9%)
Channel 4 8.0% (+1: 1.6%)
BBC Two 7.1%
Channel 5 4.5%

Source: Digital Spy.

It's a shame Case Histories couldn't get a massive lead in. But it and Scott & Bailey will do well over the next few weeks.

Seems like a great ratting for Home Alone 2 with 1.96m for Channel 4.
The film seems to have been on Sky so much but is still a great movie.

I can see S&B dropping further it's awful.

What happens when we get nearer to Christmas though? Do Sky secure some kind of exclusive rights to stop the terrestrials from showing it?

It's the only reason I can think of for the first two Home Alone movies not being a regular fixture on ITV1/Ch4/Ch5 in the run up to the festive period as they always rate well.

Great rating & share for it anyway.

But ITV didn't really promote PSTOS, did they?

It didn't have a poor lead in either, the Royal had more viewers.

Much bigger drop than expected, CH did well to come so close given S&B headstart last week.

There's definitely a feeling this morning of normality being restored with BBC One very much back in the driving seat.

The Royal performed well for ITV though- which raises the question, why on earth has it been on the shelf for so long?

I'm not disputing either point, but CH also lost quite a few viewers from its lead in. Proves lead in's aren't everything.

How long before ITV swap Popstar and The Royal around? The former seems more suited to 7pm filler, the latter more to the 8pm snooze-hour - and already the higher-rated of the two.

OK-ish retention for S&B, but Case Histories was allowed to run it surprisingly close. Is it compelling enough fare to hold viewer interest over 6 weeks? I thought CH, whilst hardly ground-breaking itself, had a "classier" feel to it and was more intriguing - not that that really counts for anything.

Everything pretty much as expected last night, apart from maybe The Royal which was quite a bit higher than I thought. Considering the episodes were made in 2008 and it got a 7pm slot I thought it would be sub 4m, but it did well to beat PSTOS. Aslong as PSTOS remains above 4m I think it's doing an OK job. I fully expected S&B to be near the 6m mark considering the drama opposition and no BGT lead in, plus the fact new dramas always fall anyway.

Some strong film ratings last night-particuarly from Home Alone & Rambo-the latter doing very well in a late slot.

Thats pretty poor for Popstar in all honesty. It had a good slot, wrapped around two strongly performing dramas and an awful lot of exposure yesterday. Actually, the dramas turned it into a pretty good night for ITV, with The Royal proving perfectly solid at 7pm and Scott and Bailey - though falling significantly - still at a good level.

I those circumstances, I think Case Histories has done pretty well. I think the BBC got a bit unlucky in S&B becoming a hit really - as we well know, a post-BGT slot doesn't always make a success of a drama! 5.4m is far from poor though - and gives the drama a decent chance if its good enough and retention is strong enough.

Poor night for BBC2 - I thought their line-up would perform better than that all-round. Coast obviously suffered from "too many repeats syndrome" - I'm not a fan of these "All New" prefixes, but maybe they serve a useful purpose.

It had about the same hype as last year. It did fine, maybe a little lower than expected but its up on last years opening, well above last years average and around the same as the most watched show of last series.


PTO and The Royal had a similar sized audience and only 3% between them. How can one be strong performing and one poor?

And I suspect its official ratings will increase more than S&B does - so it may end up a closer run thing, or even a tie. I'm thinking of how well many BBC dramas seem to timeshift - WTD, Silent Witness, Exile, Hustle and of course that Saturday teatime kids show...

Case Histories had a smaller lead in compared to Scott & Bailey last week. Losing 1.5m from Antiques Roadshow isn't the same as losing about 3m from Britain's Got Talent.

ITV1's share of 16-34 aged viewers was just 6.7%. Channel 4 gave it a right hammering in this demo yesterday with a much healthier 13.8%. (inc. +1)

ITV2 closed in on ITV1 with 5.1%. Channel 5 was way behind on 4.4%, although it nearly beat ITV1 amongst Male 16-34 viewers. (5.4% v 5.1%)

Source: C4 Sales.

Solid evening for BBC1. Countryfile was a bit lower than previous weeks' figures of 6m (when not against Corrie) but I think the Royal took away that ~1m which I imagine has a similar audience profile. I don't remember Antiques Roadshow rating as highly as that so far this year so that's an excellent rating and Case Histories started well too. A wise move putting Case Histories there rather than Luther which wouldn't have done so well in that slot. Case Histories will most likely drop tonight as it's got a new ITV1 drama competition but I think a solid ~5m is definitely possible. It seems to have gone down well with the majority of viewers so I can see it being the sort of drama settling at 4.5-5.0m like 'Silk' did earlier this year, not a massive hit but enough to see it get another series (if that's possible- actor's availability).

A mixed night for ITV1: The Royal performed relatively well considering the last series averaged 4.3m in the overnights and I don't recall an episode rating as highly as that in 2009. Popstar To Operastar fell half a million short of what I was expecting - it had loads of promotion throughout the week, the BGT preview sandwich and a pretty good lead-in so it ought to have done better. As a summer 4-5m filler, however, it might work, but it's not really something which is going to take off as ITV might've hoped. I wonder if they'll switch it with The Royal so that S&B gets a better lead-in. I actually think Scott & Bailey held up fine - it dropped 21% compared to last week which is in line with previous trends (a 15% drop due to a new drama on BBC1, 6% for natural decline). A drama getting 6.5m (inc +1) in the overnights is not to be sniffed at and it ought to now remain pretty stable for the remaining episodes as it's against the same BBC1 competition each week.

Hilarious stuff,where to start!

double post

Lets go back to the real world for a minute here, forgetting any channel preferences. If ITV recomissioned it with an average 3.8m, and last nights programme got 4.4m, shedding 0.25m viewers from the "strongly performing drama" before it, then thats OK isn't it? Or am I missing something here? The % is in line with the ITV1 average, so taking everything into consideration, I think I arrive quite reasonably at my "it did fine" conclusion. Now, enlighten me as to why thats so hilarious.

Very good for Case Histories, I had expected under 5m so 5.4m is a very solid acheievement. Scott and Bailey fell in line with expectations, its next rating will be important to see whether it will continue to fall or stabilise around 6m.

PTOS obviously benefited greatly from the BGT sandwich. I take it all back, well done ITV.

That kind of increase is marginal at best when you consider they scheduled it one of ITV's strongest slots of the week normally. It used to be on Fridays, remember.

If they hadn't made such a big deal out of it, and scheduled it somewhere more appropriate, then that rating might have been alright. But then when you consider the 20%+ drop for the poorly scheduled results show as well, it's very poor indeed, not far off SYTYCD levels which has drawn widespread ridicule on this thread.

SYTYCD actually premiered higher this year both in terms of audience and share with 4.87m (22.6%). I reckon the final result on Saturday at 10pm has a real shot at beating the Popstar result on Sunday at 10pm next weekend.

The demos when you have them will be interesting. The Royal demos will be old and low in ABC1's I'd expect. Not so sure about PSTOS - I'd expect oldish but higher ABC1s. Thats why I'm not sure these 2 go all that well together although The Royal is being burned off anyway.

PSTOS is a better show this year in terms of its structure and the seperate results show makes sense from a viewer perspective. The problem though is the contestants - Midge Ure was awful and it was inevitable that he would get sent home. He might have been able to organise Live Aid but he cant sign opera It says something when Joe McElderry was the best by a mile last night.

There clearly is a Classic FM listening audience out there that its trying to tap into. At 10pm last night you had Myleene on ITV1 and Classic FM at the same time weirdly. ITVs longer term brand repair project is suited by shows like this so I can see it coming back again.

Last year also had a Corrie lead in each week and was on in the winter, this year there was a preview for the first episode during BGT and then its being left to stand up by itself. I also wouldn't say they made a bigger deal out of this year than last year, there was a heavy advertising campaign last year too.

I agree that the results show was a very bad error of judgement, they should have had a 90 minute show instead. In all its just summer filler, and as long as it stays above 4m then I don't think its an issue.

I think the view at ITV HQ will be more along the lines of... we gave it a great opportunity and it squandered it. Don't we look awfully silly now.

It certainly doesn't look like making any sort of impact this summer in the way that these shows so often do in their 2nd or 3rd series.

True, moving from Friday to Sunday will have helped it but moving from January to June won't have helped. I think the main reason for the negativity about the rating is that it had a BGT sandwich for the preview show which should have boosted it more. 4.5m for a cheap Sunday night entertainment show isn't bad but the exposure meant people expected more. I did say last night I expected 4-5m and it was within that bracket. I think if it's still doing 4.5m in a few weeks time then it will have done OK but at the moment it doesn't look that good. The rating for the results show is poor but hardly a surprise, 10pm on Sunday night was a ridiculous start time for a family show, on a work/school night. It was never going to work.

It was indeed below SYTYCD's premiere rating but that was an alright rating for SYTYCD, but it's been downhill from there. Let's face it, SYTYCD slipped to 2.2m for both shows this week, and I can't see PSTOS going anywhere near that low so the comparison doesn't work. It's results show may beat the PSTOS result next week but it will be the dance show's final, so it will be higher than it has been. I'm sure the PSTOS final results show will be higher than SYTYCD's and that is the fair comparison.

On a slightly different note Broadcast says Scott and Bailey grew over the hour. So it averaged 6.5m and grew whilst it was on air, that seems like a good performance to me. Yes it was down on last week but it had a huge lead in last week and was against a film repeat, whereas last night it had a mediocre lead in and faced a new drama on BBC1. Bit of a difference.