Strongest episode of the series as well.

Shame they're entering "Revisited" mode from next week. That will dent the figures.

It's not just News at Ten that was bumped out of it's usual slot tonight, Newsnight is later than usual due to BBC2 showing a film.

BBC Two and Channel 4 had relatively quiet nights, though Wallis Simpson recorded a reasonably figure for Channel 4. Celebrity Big Brother is doing very well for Channel 5 with another good rating. The football has given ITV1 and reprieve from bad ratings but only for a night. BBC One's night was mediocre but considering that's as bad as it'll get for them that's ok.

US Summer TV - Broadcast:

Show - Viewers - Adults 18-49 - A18-49 vs 2010
America's Got Talent - 12.2m (3.4) - Up 10%
Big Brother - 7.3m (2.7) - Up 13%
Hell's Kitchen - 6.7m (2.7) - Down 9%
The Bachelorette - 8.1m (2.5) - Down 17%
So You Think You Can Dance - 6.4m (2.2) - Down 8%
Masterchef - 5.3m (2.2) - Down 5%
Wipeout - 6.4m (1.9) - Down 30%

Expedition Impossible, 101 Ways To Lose A Gameshow and Take The Money and Run have all failed to perform particularly well for ABC. Buried Treasure bombed on FOX on its premiere this week. NBC have continued to air It's Worth What? at 8pm on Tuesdays despite it averaging 1.1's most weeks. CBS' Same Name has also failed to make an impact.

I think if Merlin and Dr Who are airing on the same night we could well see Merlin pulling in higher overnight ratings than Dr Who. Merlin is capable of 6m + overnights against the X-Factor but Dr Who has been doing quite poorly in the overnights lately. I think they will both boost each other though if they are on consecutively. Also it will be good if it means Casualty gets bumped later out of the way of X-Factor. BBC1 could have 3 high rating dramas on the same evening.

Eviction interviews airing at 11pm? Bad idea, they need to bring it forward to 10.30pm. I'd much rather they kept it all in one show like they've done with CBB.

Agreed. It should be:

9pm: Big Brother: Live Eviction
10.30pm: The Bachelor
11.30pm: Bit On The Side

If the Bachelor underperforms this week, I'd hope that would be the route 5 would go down.

The BBC has extended the original comission of Merlin from 10 to 13 episodes. Now they have 3 extra episodes to overlap with DW and see if it works.

Doctor Who "does quite poorly" in the overnights because it's on in the Spring and early Summer, sometimes as early at 6pm. Its earliest start time in the last run was 6.45pm and it was regularly competing against good weather.

In the last run it managed 6m+ on three occasions and its lowest overnight was 5.05m against the Champions League final. (Yes, yes, I know it was just the build-up to the match but that game did feature Manchester United.) And the mid-season finale managed 5.5m even though ITV ran their England international straight into the BGT final without providing some filler inbetween for the benefit of the Doctor (which was just selfish).

I predict Dr Who will be above 7m this Saturday in its 7.10pm slot, even though it's still summer (apparantly, he says, looking at the heavy, heavy rain outside.)

Do you mean the gratuitous sex. violence and bad language that is the hallmark of many HBO programmes?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...ime-drama-sky1

I'm sure a couple of our regulars will come on and say they've already read the script and it's rubbish!!

Last night's 9pm figures

Show Me The Funny (final).....2.5m

Torchwood - 3.4m

Cowboy Builders - 1.9m

The Duchess - 3m

The Killing - 1.2m

Hmmm, no gain from Torchwood compared with last week, instead BBC Two recording a very good rating for the Duchess film. I imagine it will be recommissioned, but a 4.5m official is not a particularly good figure. Show Me the Funny had a respectable final figure considering the alarming figures of the past few weeks.

Bushmills, do you know how CBB did?

So Funny should have been on Thursdays all along!

Bushmills, do you have a 15 or 5 minute breakdown for Torchwood last night. Would be interested to see how stable the audience was please .

Wow, great rating for The Duchess, was not expecting that to rate so high at all.

I hate to say this, but there has been a lot of discussion on other threads about the strong gay element in the first part of TW last night, what some people have (incorrectly) called 'gay porn', with some people saying they switched off. I would point out that anyone who really thought it was porn leads a very sheltered life, and that had it shown a straight relationship noone would have batted an eyelid. But I do wonder if it affected the ratings.

Quite poor for Torchwood considering how high rating previous series were. 3.4m against weak competition isn't a good place for a drama to be in. Future series will also have to be scheduled carefully.

Show Me the Funny did ok considering the low ratings this show has had.

Surprised to see an ~0.5m increase for SMTF. Although if it had aired on Thursdays, Single Handed would have been strangled on Mondays. Torchwood didn't bounce back despite weaker competition, but The Duchess & Cowboy Builders really benefited with great audiences for both.

Another poor night for Ch4 and CBB seems to have found a stable level at ~2.5m. Croc Man is the weak link in the entire weeks schedule though.

Standout rating of the night for me is BB Bit On The Side. 0.9m at 11pm is pretty good and that share stands out too.

Last night?

Yeah I think CBB Bit on the Side is a great piece of planning airing straight after the main CBB show. Programmes such as The Xtra Factor do well, and so does I'm A Celeb Get me Out of Here Now, so this kind of copies that planning in the schedule and is paying off.

ITV4 7.15pm Tottenham Hotspur vs Hearts 992k (4.5%)

not bad for a completely dead rubber game

To those who asked...

CBB - 2.4m

Torchwood breakdown (don't have the volume but these are the shares):

9pm - 16.5%
9.15 - 13.9%
9.30 - 14.6%
9.45 - 14.5%

Oh, and C5's Croc Man was back down to 400k and a 2% share at 8pm. Sorry Dancc.

This is a valid point and I think some will have switched off. Although it wasn't 'gay porn' it is very unusual to find that level of that type of material broadcast on primetime BBC1, which I can understand may have put some people off. Also the general feel of last night's episode was quite slow and boring until the last 20mins or so. I almost turned over due to the boring-ness of it but it picked up in the last 20mins. Anyway I can't see ratings rising above 3.5 million overnights until the final episode now

Torchwood has had an easy ride for weeks, first sign of decent competition and the rating drops. But it will make some up in the consolidated ratings, how much remains to be seen.