live primetime evening sport ratings appears now to at least match normal mainstream tv and in a lot of cases it better it by a considerable amount, this is quite a siginificant shift and you wonder how quickly the fta channels will respond to this and start putting pressure on the sporting bodies to put live sport on when the maximum number of people want to watch it

I would think you are right, no question it will have dented EE, leaving only Corrie to possibly steal the ratings crown.

That proves that from a ratings front they were justified in moving the tennis to BBC1.

Very good ratings for the tennis. I've stayed out of the scheduling debate thus far, but I think the move was worth it. It is certainly a very transparent ratings ploy - but it works. The BBC are simply trying to protect and enhance BBC One's reputation as the home of big national events - and I think thats entirely right. Being able to win such large, primetime audiences is also, of course, the main appeal of the BBC to sporting bodies and what justifies the cost of the contracts.


Indeed. Sport is one area where the seemingly constant downward trend of terrestrial ratings doesn't apply. You can observe something similar (in a slightly more developed state) in the US. This year, NBC's Sunday Night Football games have been closing in and overtaking American Idol as the most watched programme. Idol, like most other shows, is falling - while the NFL ratings are, if anything, rising.

A peak audience of 8.8m saw #AndyMurray win his third round match against #IvanLjubicic. #Wimbledon #BBC1

Source: Sam Hodges

ITV1:

Corrie 1930 7.3m / 34.2%
Corrie 2030 6.5m / 27.4%
Emmerdale 6.3m / 31.5%


BBC One
Graham Norton 3.3m / 21.7%

C4
Cats 1.5m / 6.6%
Alan Carr 1.4m / 7.4%

BBC Three
Eastenders 1.2m / 6%

Does it though - we need to consider what BBC1+BBC2 would have got to compare really.

I expected BBC 3 EE ratings to be more than that.

Thanks dubsj. What did EastEnders get on BBC2 and BBCHD, and Paul O'Grady Live on ITV1 please?

Corrie and the 8 Out of 10 Cats actually held up better than what I was expecting.

That's interesting - ITV wasn't dented much actually, not massively down on last Friday.

Do you have the BBC Two EastEnders rating and also Paul O'Grady?

Paul O'Grady - 2.9m / 12.3%

BBC One/Two numbers not adjusted I'm afraid.

Definitely think the BBC and Wimbledon need to come to an agreement that the last match on Centre Court starts no earlier than 7pm and that it is the highest profile of the days matches, this is what they do for the US Open and their night sessions

PoG down 0.7m compared to last week's 3.6m (inc +1) to its joint lowest rating of the series, so it definitely was dented by the Murray match which I suspect was at 8m+ during that period.

Channel 4's King Of finished last in its timeslot last night.

Channel 4 weathered the storm better than ITV1 by the looks of these numbers, surprising.

How did Castle fair for episode two?

What were they last time?
Didn't the BBC 3 showing start late last night?

It's not usually - think it was a special for the Royal Highland Show.

EastEnders had 5.42m (23.9%) on BBC Two [+ 103k on BBC HD] so 5.52m (24.3%).

Tennis Breakdown
Time - BBC-1 - Share
19:00 - 5.18m - 26.35%
19:15 - 5.31m - 25.91%
19:30 - 5.61m - 26.66%
19:45 - 5.63m - 25.78%
20:00 - 6.06m - 27.18%
20:15 - 5.97m - 25.73%
20:30 - 6.33m - 26.82%
20:45 - 6.56m - 27.64%
21:00 - 7.40m - 31.93%
21:15 - 7.66m - 32.58%
21:30 - 8.11m - 34.33%
21:45 - 7.56m - 32.89%

Thanks to MattJ for the ratings

thats ok, but based on that I would expect the BBC 3 rating to be higher.

That said the Sunday onimbus and BBC iPlayer rating may be higher to make up for it.

ITV's soaps held up well, particularly Emmerdale which wasn't effected at all.

Inconceivable.

1) The BBC would not want tennis on prime-time BBC1 every evening. The reason it gets good ratings when it is on prime-time BBC1 is it's only 2 or 3 matches in the tournament (so has scarcity value) and it's Murray.

An easy straight sets win for Nadal / Federer / Djokovic could never justify prime-time BBC1.

2) US Open has separate night sessions which are 2 matches starting at 7pm. Merton Council has 11pm cut-off which means Wimbledon could only have one match in a night session. Not appropriate to sell tickets for one match only which could be over quickly. Especially if it's a ladies match - could be over in under an hour.

3) US Open can have separate night session as day session starts at 11am. Wimbledon show courts start at 1pm meaning day session could then only be 2 matches - again not what Wimbledon would want. Would be massive change in character of tournament - might often have no play on show courts from 5pm to 7pm.

Did we ever find out why the BBC announced a schefule change to, then suddenly pulled, a Crimewatch special on Thursday night? The court case and investigation has been discussed on numerous news and magazine shows since so it seems not to be embargoed as speculated on the night. So why do this?

They probably realised it could impact on the jury - who were still deliberating on another count, but it was too late anyway as they got dismissed the next day due to all the publicity.

well the court did discharge the jury on the second charge, based on media coverage of the first charge, so its possible the BBC removed it so as to try and allow that to happen.

To be honest I dont why the court is blaming the media, why send the jury home to be exposed to the media, why not lock them up in a hotel with no media in it, so they could still giver their verdict on the second charge.

Even though the verdict on the Murder charge came through on Thursday, there were still some other charges which weren't resolved until Friday morning. Once it was realised the trial was still ongoing, the Crimewatch special couldn't be shown. Basically, someone jumped the gun.