11m is a pretty poor peak given the wall to wall hype, and the teams involved. That 19m peak in 1999 seems of another age.

Really surprised to see the CL Final peak at 1.8m below the Eurovision. That's a ratings shock surely no-one saw coming!

The fact that Man U were out of it from about 60 minutes onwards probably didnt help

Ouch for Dont Scare the Hare.

I don't think it's a poor peak at all, and expected it to rate along those lines in that sort of scenario last night. If it had been a closer match in the second half or gone into extra time, obviously the peak would've been higher. The match was pretty similar to the 2009 one (where the winner won by a 2 goal margin) and 2007 one (where it was 2-0 until a late consolation) and neither of those peaked at over 11m. I'm not sure why you're bringing up the 19m from 1999 to be honest, if you just looked at recent figures for the UCL final you'd have known it was never going to come close to that. Also you keep forgetting that the UCL final was broadcast on another channel too, so in reality the peak would've been higher than Eurovision which was on just one channel.

No, no its a roraing success. Cant wait to see where they schedule season 2

Half term holidays this week.

Also, some DW fans - particularly in the Home Counties - may also be United fans.

I expected sub 5m actually.

Brilliant!

Primetime Shares
ITV1 - 28.9%
BBC1 - 14.2%
C4 - 8.6%
BBC2 - 7.2%
C5 - 4.4%

And a graph: http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/8863/28may.png

it would have been nice to see BBC2 beating BBC1 to 3rd place for the evening.

Apologies, the BBC2 share was wrong. The rest are correct, however.

Poor for Doctor Who- I've got to be honest I've really gone off it this series and it looks like I'm not alone. The timeshift arguments don't really wash because I suspect that when David Tennant was starring it still got massive timeshifts and huge TV ratings. I think this spells the beginning of the end for the series unless there huge changes are made before the next series. SYTYCD is an embarrassing shambles and Who Dares Wins is holding up a lot worse than other lottery quiz shows tend to. So all in all a disastrous night for the Beeb...

Champions league performed solidly but not spectacularly. ITV will be hoping for bigger numbers for BGT this week.

On the other hand Million Pound Drop performed very well indeed especially if the rating doesn't include +1. Can anyone shed any light on that?

Perhaps ITV (aka MUTV) can persuade their mate Sir Alex to name Jedward on the subs bench if Utd make the final next year?

Doctor Who definitely timeshifts more now than 2-4 years ago when David Tennant was in it. Here's the average timeshifts for the 1st four episodes of each regular series since 2007:

David Tennant series:
2007- 0.43m
2008- 0.74m

Matt Smith series:
2010- 1.85m
2011- 1.99m

So timeshift in Matt Smiths' two series has been almost 3 times more than David Tennant's last proper series, over 4 times more compared to the 2007 one.


Apart from In It To Win It, Who Dares Wins usually holds up the best out of the Lottery formats. It's capable of 5-6m against easy competition and manages high 3's/low 4's against tough competition like BGT most weeks. Last night's was an exception to the rule. I don't think 3.3m is too disasterous considering how poor the lead-in was and Casualty after it got 'only' 0.5m more.


Yep, the MPD rating doesn't include +1. Would've been 0.2-0.3m higher with +1 I suspect. Looks like it benefitted from poor competition on BBC1 and post-match filler on ITV1 which dipped under 4m during that time.

What is it with BBC's golf viewers? Why would anyone want to watch the top players and then not bother with their last four holes!!

I can imagine the moronic conversations "Shall we watch Luke Donald finish his round, or stay on BBC One as "Don't Scare the Hare" is on next?"

There are so many 'casual' viewers. The golf was on SS2 on Thursday and Friday, anyone got any figures?

At least those who put SS on to watch the golf, actually want to watch it!!

OK fair enough so it does stand up better than I first imagined I still do maintain though that there seems to be a downward trend for it and considering it was only facing match build up it should have performed better

Fantastic for MPD, CSI:NY did well as normal too

Low for Casualty, though with the competition, a weak lead in and a weak lead out I suppose it was never going to do well. It doesn't want to be going that low too often though. Can't help but wonder if BBC1 would have better off just running a Film last night - obviously they wouldn't have known when comissioning there would be a British team in the final, and that SYTYCD would be such a flop, but a low night for them from 1930 onwards

I see what you're saying, regarding last night. Given that 3.5m watched ITV1 over the same period last night, one might've expected a bit more from Doctor Who (last week it had 3.7m competition), but I I bet it'll timeshift to ~7m which would put it almost in line with how other sixth episodes have rated. I am a bit worried about next week though, given that it'll have stiffer competition in the form of an England post-match football filler (which will rate low-ish but probably better than Do The Funniest Things I suspect) and the BGT final - it could be closer to 4m than 5m in seven days' time.

Regarding how ratings for Doctor Who have been holding up overall, here are the official averages for each series of Doctor Who for the first four episodes (4 episodes because that's up to where the latest officials for this series are at):

2005- 8.81m
2006- 8.52m
2007- 7.76m
2008- 8.19m
2010- 8.82m
2011- 7.99m

Ratings so far this series have been officially down -9% compared to last year's equivalent average, but that was always going to happen given that last year's first few episodes were boosted by there being a new Doctor. However so far, it has been more popular than David Tennant's second series after 4 episodes. I don't think the ratings decline has been anything too drastic - with any sort of drama you'd expect ratings erosion after a few years anyway, but DW has been holding up pretty well around that 8m mark in the consolidated figures. It's showing more fragility in the overnights these days than a few years ago but as mentioned earlier, this is countered by a much healthier timeshift.

Awful evening for BBC1 even before the football started. Doctor Who has sunk to one of it's lowest ratings ever, and SYTYCD is flopping in spectacular fashion. How low will it go next week?

With no normal programming on ITV, BBC1 should have mopped up all non-football fans in search of normal Saturday viewing, so it should have rated higher.

Many millions will have been watching the Champions League down the pub with it being a Saturday, so that rating is very strong.

Even New People Do The Funniest Things: 2.8m beat BBC1s SYTYCD which got just 2.6M

Dont Scare The Hare, you have to feel sorry for Jason, a shot at the big time on BBC, and all his years of work at the Gadget Show see him lumbered with that hare. That said I quite like the cartoon ident of the Doctor being chased by the Hare, I think maybe its calling has been missed.

Moving on it does seem that Doctor Who is down this series, cant put my finger as to why however, as for X-Factor, I think the posted article is rubbish, why would her being on X-Factor UK be an issue.

Hmmm.... it doesn't work like that though when there's such a big match. I know it happened earlier this year when there was a rugby match on BBC1 primetime, which boosted ITV1's ratings that night. But that was a rugby match which was a virtual dead-rubber that averaged sub-4m IIRC. When there's a football match averaging 10m+, I suspect a lot of people who are not your usual football watchers would be watching it too. BBC1 was never going to sweep up 'non football fans' especially with the schedule it had last night including SYTYCD results (why would anyone want to watch that if they hadn't seen the previous 8 weeks) and a repeat of John Bishop's Britain.

The BBC and her record company Universal want Cheryl Cole to be a judge of The Voice on BBC1: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/20...factor-sacking

It could happen I guess, but im not sure it will be worthwhile.

TBH it has shades of Arlene Phillips, sacked from Strictly moving on to So You Think You Can Dance, and we dont need to look far to see how that has worked out.

I read today that 529 people attended Northern Ireland vs Wales game as Dublin's Aviva Stadium on Friday night. Sky are quoted as saying that the tv ratings aren't too bad even though their involvement in showing Carling Nations Cup is under review.

Does anybody have any figures for the game on Sky on Friday night?

PS It nearly makes the BBCs hare massacre's numbers look good doesnt it?

she might be too "fragile" too accept

Rather strange to see the BBC casting a show they havent commissioned yet? Of course its all b******ks and Cole will be back on the UK XFactor soon