Don't forget though that Downton Abbey ran from 9-10.30pm while Spooks ran from 9-10pm. DA's figures would've dropped off a little bit after 10pm when fewer viewers are watching TV. So during the actual head to head between 9-10pm, Downton Abbey probably did beat Spooks by more than 2 to 1. Also, based on last year's figures, DA may well timeshift more too.

On the RPG, the average prediction for Downton Abbey was 8.9m, so we were pretty much spot on there.

Attentional blog for last night
http://www.attentional.com/screenwatch/

Big Brother performed marginally better last night there with the 1.2m which was against competition from BBC 1, ITV and ITV 2. Still quite a low share though.

about where I expected DA to be given its 90 minute run time plus the the lead in not coming from live X Factor results shows yet. Still maybe a tad low when you factor in the stv effect, although last season many Scottish residents watched on channel 993 on Sky to circumvent STV so that effect may not have been as big as we thought.

Spooks & BB doing as expected too. I'd be interested to see what Xtra Facror got - quite low I'd expect.

Competition is heating up now for BB but they have some respite for the next 2 or 3 nights before they get hit with X Factor USA

Its a shame for Spooks to finish against something like Downton Abbey, and it looks like I need to increase my X-Factor guess for a Sunday

Very sporting of you to acknowledge that.

You'd expect me to have a little bit of fun at DA's ratings being down on the last episode, but it's obviously a fantastic figure for a period drama. However, it was very much at the lower end of expectations, whereas Spooks was probably in the top half of it's expectations range.

Still, only half time. We'll have to wait a week to find out.how many.actually watched each show.

I think with a slightly better set of circumstances it might have got 0.5m more, but obviously other channels were ready for DA this year and planned accordingly, so there wasnt the same element of surprise this time around

But just remember DA timeshifts well and it increased as its run continued last year, so the "normal" rules dont apply here (x% drop between episode 1 & 2, etc)

Plus if rumours are to be believed and they kill off a major character in WW1 this season, that will ratchet up the interest factor a bit more

Although I have to wonder quite how much of an audience crossover there is between the two programmes. And I would have thought that Spooks is not something that the casual viewer would be likely to dip in and out of.

Sunday 18th September Overnights
BBC One
18:00- Nature's Miracle Babies: 3.11m (16.7%)
19:00- Countryfile: 6.25m (25%)
20:00- Antiques Roadshow: 5.53m (20.9%)
21:00- Spooks: 4.62m (17%)
22:00- BBC News: 3.3m (13.5%)

BBC Two
19:00- Top Gear: 2.16m (9.9%) inc HD
20:00- A South American Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby: 1.29m (4.9%)
21:00- World's Most Dangerous Roads: 2.26m (8.3%) inc HD
22:00- Match of the Day 2: 3.4m (18.8%)

ITV1
18:00- Countrywise: 2.47m (13.3%)
19:00- Holding Out for a Hero: 2.64m (12.1%)
20:00- The X Factor: 11.19m (42.2%) , +1: 286k (1.1%)
21:00- Downton Abbey: 8.9m (34.44%) , +1: 303k (1.8%)
22:30- ITV News and Weather: 3.7m (20.3%)

Channel 4
19:00- Grand Designs: 950k (4.4%) , +1: 173k (0.7%)
20:00- Back From The Dead: 820k (3.8%) , +1: 204k (0.8%)
21:00- He's Just Not That Into You: 1.16m (5.3%) , +1: 268k (2.1%)

Channel 5
18:10- 50 First Dates: 1.42m (7%)
20:00- Warship: 567k (2.1%)
21:00- Big Brother: 1.24m (4.6%)

Primetime Shares
ITV1: 30% (+1: 0.8%)
BBC One: 19.6%
BBC Two: 9.1%
Channel 4: 4.3% (+1: 0.7%)
Channel 5: 4%

Ratings include HD and are tape-checked where necessary

Multichannel
BBC Three
21:00- Young, Dumb and Living Off Mum: 395k (1.5%)

Dave (inc +1)
21:00- Have I Got a Bit More News For You: 261k

E4 (inc +1)
17:30- Garfield: 407k
20:00- The Day After Tomorrow: 652k

Film4 (inc +1)
18:15- The Hunt for Red October: 405k
21:00- Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery: 329k

ITV2
21:00- The Xtra Factor: 1.11m (4.1%) , +1: 155k (0.8%)

More4 (inc +1)
18:15- Come Dine with Me: 529k
19:00- The World Sheep Dog Trials: 140k

Sky 1
21:00- Strike Back: Project Dawn: 419k (1.5%)

Watch (inc +1)
19:00- New MasterChef Australia: 115k

Yesterday (inc +1)
18:00- Catherine Cookson's Tilly Trotter: 301k

Source: DS

And there is also the Sunday early teatime repeat to factor in as well, so it will be likely to pick up quite a few viewers there (although would those be included in the final figures?)

Came to this thread for the first time, trying to see how Downton did last night. I went back for a few weeks, too, reading the ratings and your comments with interest. Just want to say thanks for the sterling job you're doing in here. This is a thread I'll continue to read!

Against part 2 of a two-hour X Factor USA premiere, though? I do think Sky have messed up with the scheduling. Why not Mondays 9pm as per E4?

I think it'll be yet another Sky TV show that posts uninspiring overnights, before timeshifting massively in the officials.

Very nice for ITV1. I wonder how high it might have been if it wasn't for Holding Out for a Hero?

I did think Downton Abbey might have come in slightly higher but still an excellent return for it.

Share does look bad for it but it was against a popular returning drama and an absolute juggernaut on the other side so viewing was significantly higher than normal in the 9pm timeslot.

It's not a good rating but at least it was ahead of ITV2 and Channel 4. I still think they should try more 9pm shows - Wednesdays would be a very good place to start.

5USA has all the highlights at 10pm tonight in an exclusive two-hour programme.

So that is 3 days ITV1 have beat BBC1 I wonder how they will do tonight.

I think they didn't want Mondays as it would have been to big a gap between the U.S and UK airings but I agree that the scheduling is not ideal. Perhaps Wednesdays would have been better.

I had forgotten about XF USA - look forward to seeing how it gets on on both sides of the Atlantic. Is it just me or have ITV2 not been promoting it that heavily?

Almost needless to say, but a great night for ITV. Downton was below my own guesses, but I suppose there were quite a lot of variables working in different directions on that one: the STV effect and the hype vs. the lower lead in (not that 11m isn't massive!) and the opposition. As George says, I doubt this'll suffer the usual week-on-week drops, and we can be sure it'll benefit as TXF gets into top gear over the coming weeks.

Spooks did OK, really. About what the BBC must have been hoping for when they placed it there. Both dramas will obviously time shift extremely well too, so that'll finish with a perfectly respectable number. Though I anticipate it could drop somewhat over the run.

A couple more ratings from yesterday:

Source: Guardian

Excellent rating for Downton, but i was sure it would get over 10m.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...TV-Player.html

Work skivers!

Weird night last night. I'm really not sure how else to describe a night when a rating of 9 million can justifiably be described as a little bit on the low side or a bit disappointing and less than 5 million on BBC1 at the same time is surprisingly good. Yet all of that does apply. Very weird.


It remains astonishing to me that the ITV Player can still be that bad. And this is a service they want to start charging people for...?

Its got a good following, most viewers are of a younger demographic. Find other ways of watching it and get hold of the DVDs afterwards.

Though S8 has been a huge success in the US this year with speculation that Larry David will do 2 more seasons

A decent rating for Spooks, about in the middle of my expectations for it. I expect to see a large timeshift for it though. Also with Countryfile already hitting well over 6 million, I think we could be on for some 7 or 8 million ratings from it once again this year once the Strictly results shows start.


Very strong ratings from X-Factor and Downton. Downton was about 100k above my expectations. I don't really get the 10m predictions for it though; it seemed very unlikely to me that it would pull in a rating equal to or above its highest ever rating that it achieved after a 15m X-Factor lead-in during November [EDIT, X-Factor peaked over 17m that night]. I do however, expect Downton to rise towards and posibly over that 10 million mark as the series progresses. X-Factor seems to be showing that it will be capable of 13m/14m/15m overnights once again in a few weeks time. Holding Out For A Hero though is a total bomb, it should be pulled at once. A 2.6m rating that is no doubt inflated by the early X-Factor viewers tuning in is terrible.


Channel 5 had better luck with their Sunday night movie this week then. I wonder how the 2nd movie, the Prom Night premiere, did at 10pm. I decided to give it a go after Spooks because Idris Elba was in it.

Is there becoming a trend for TV drama to be timeshifted for later viewing?


If I liked Downton Abbey I wold certainly not watch it as broadcast, too many adverts. Any ITV drama lends itself to PVRing through the every-8-minutes adverts

With Dr Who it's perhaps more a case of it being out of place on a saturday early evening.