In fairness that's only because of the Emmerdale clash. I thought it held up OK actually.

Good grief, crikey, holy mackerel! That's one horrendous rating for the BB Winners Story. I'll have to consult my records later but that is almost certainly the lowest 9pm weeknight rating in the history of the channel.

Highland Emergency the only decent performer for C5 amidst the crappy ratings elsewhere in the schedule. Paul Merton certainly doesn't deserve to be that low, but there you go.

Thinking about it, the conditions were just right for a C5 disaster last night at 9. Essentially airing reality filler against the reality juggernaut that is IACGMOOH, the massively popular Frozen Planet, a heavily promoted new US drama series and one of C4's most popular shows in Grand Designs, was never going to end too well. It was just too much to cope with. Pan Am and Grand Designs were a good million or so down on where they would normally be as well, it's just they had a higher upper threshold to start with.

Yes it was a typo - figures should have read 80k (previously c.130-150k in its 5pm slot). Apologies - Scotland ain't that big after all!

The awkward moment when a former ratings juggernaut, sandwiched between a 7.2m rating soap and a 8.2m rating LCD trash show, could nevertheless only manage 4.2m viewers, a mere nose ahead of the competing drama which was halfway through and had to go up against the soap...




A regular 19m, in fact, at its height!

Same as Millionaire had.

Both now routinely beaten by lowbrow midweek drama serials...

(I'm taking the view WR probably led during the 8-8.30pm half hour)

Think Soho Blues or a film would have done better, Paul Merton was only slightly down when you consider it has a horrendous lead in. DDS seem to be affected by IAC.

I think Channel 5 should accept they made a scheduling cockup with Paul Merton rather than axe it. Charley Boorman should do well although I would have saved it until January.

Are we talking about Casualty now?

OK, thanks a lot.

I guess it makes sense given the FA's financial position that they would not want to lose either the TV money or gate revenue from playing one game less than planned.

I agree to an extent. There's no doubt in my mind that the scheduling clashes it suffered early on are the reason why Merton's figures are so low now. But also short of C5 predicting in advance where Frozen Planet was going to go, they couldn't have done much more. It was just unfortunate the way it panned out.

It would have done better in Q1 with lesser opposition but equally some new stuff has to air in Q4 as well. Extreme Frontiers should do well, it's only got to face IAC for one week. And the show itself looks great.

Frozen Planet took the wind out of it and it never recovered, I imagine they thought Young Apprentice would air on Wednesdays.

I didn't realise the episode length had been confirmed! When/where was this?

I'm almost certain 2.4% is a record low for any terrestrial channel through primetime, I know Channel 4 had a mid ~2% once, but I think 2.4% beats that in low's. Ouch.

I'm a Celebrity held up well against tough competition, denting Frozen Planet in the process.

Broadcast saying that in the 9-10pm hour it was

I'm A Celebrity 8.66m (33.42%) versus Frozen Planet 5.77m (22.3%). And 280,000 for Big Brother.

ABC:
8pm - The Middle - 9.14m (2.9)
8.30pm - Suburgatory - 8.13m (2.8)
9pm - Modern Family - 12.88m (5.5)
9.30pm - Happy Endings - 7.11m (3.2)
10pm - Revenge - 7.95m (2.6)

CBS:
8pm - Survivor - 11.52m (3.3)
9pm - Criminal Minds - 12.54m (3.7)
10pm - CSI - 10.51m (2.6)

FOX:
8pm - The X Factor - 11.18m (3.8)

NBC:
8pm - Up All Night - 4.82m (1.9)
8.30pm - Up All Night (R) - 3.86m (1.4)
9pm - Harry's Law - 7.15m (1.1)
10pm - Law & Order: SVU - 7.26m (1.9)

Tvbythenumbers

NETWORKS:
#1 - FOX - 11.18m (3.8) up 72% vs 2010
#2 - ABC - 8.86m (3.3) up 27%
#3 - CBS - 11.52m (3.2) up 7%
#4 - NBC - 6.25m (1.5) down 21%

Another Wednesday win for FOX driven by 2 hours of X Factor which was up a fraction from last week (and will end up with a 3.9 or 4.0 in finals). ABC's week off for the CMA Awards knocked their entire line-up. It's still a pretty solid night for them, though and they posted year on year gains in every slot. They've also got a significant lead over CBS in the adults 18-34 demo for the night. And to have a Wednesday 10pm drama tying CSI is a big bonus for them although Revenge did fall somewhat from its last airing. CBS also saw some gains from last week with their entire line-up growing in viewers and adults 18-49.

Ouch for Channel 5. The lowest ever mid week rating on any terrestrial channel being associated with the Big Brother brand, which was supposed to propel the Channel to ratings glory, is just insult to injury.


IAC still held up very well but I knew it wouldn't 9 million with the delay between shows, different start time which was stated wrong twice and being against much stronger competition. Hopefully will increase and hit 9 million tonight? It's doing superb this series!

Disappointing for Pam Am which was hyped to be a big hit.

Not the lowest ever. Five had 2.3% on New Year's Day 2010 for example, and that had CSI in the schedule. But certainly it's an incredibly poor share, especially for a regular weekday.

I can't find anything lower than 280k for the 9pm hour on C5 in my records, though. That's not to say they haven't been lower before, I just don't have a record of it. However the fashion series Stylista debuted with just 243k (1.1%) in the 8pm slot on March 5th 2009. It was pulled immediately the following week.

Stylista was to boost the Fiver airing which aired at the same time but it was a collosal failure, think Britain's Bravest was pulled as well when it hit 0.3m.

This reminds me of GeorgeS the day before CBB launched trying to make out that the 0.2m for the OK! TV 'When Bruv Takes Over' special actually meant something as far as the show proper was concerned. Of course, that night it launched with over 5 million viewers and broke all records for general entertainment on 5.

It's a bloody awful rating, but absolutely meaningless as far as Big Brother as a brand is concerned. It's quite clear the extraordinary circumstances of the 9pm slot last night took their toll on what was essentially an unadvertised series review programme for the fans.

That's awful.

The Impressions Show rated horribly again last night, for some reason it just isn't working

Embarassing for Waterloo Road's series finale to be beaten by a You've Been Framed repeat, surviving the move to Scotland in 10 episodes time is on a knife edge.

I'm a Celeb held up well against Frozen Planet

0.3m for 9pm on Channel 5 is just ridiculous, I bet it was beaten by half a dozen digital channels.

Oh, I doubt it somehow. That strikes me as something we might have already heard by now if that were the case.

The biggest digital channel ITV2 was in mini shutdown mode anyway with a Life Stories repeat. It's not allowed to compete with ITV1 when the jungle show is on.

The same Jungle show which is a very similar format to that Big Brother which you have waxed lyrically on about for the last few months?

People make me laugh the way there perceptions of programmed change depending on which channel they are on. It should be the opposite.

That Winners Story rating means nothing really. When Bruv Takes over got 0.2m and then 5m+ for CBB launch the next day. Didn't help that it aired against IAC, Frozen Planet, Grand Designs etc... it took away any of the audience it would have.

Err, is referring to it as "jungle show" akin to slagging it off now? I don't think so. I've always maintained it's a good show with excellent production values, even though I stopped watching a couple of years back.

It's you that's droned on negatively about Big Brother for months like it's the scourge of the earth, only to talk about I'm A Celeb as if it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Maybe practice what you preach? Just a thought.

It'll be interesting what Channel 5 have in store for Christmas, last year's dip into the archives, films and countdown shows were relatively successful so I imagine they'll do the same this year. Film wise, I think it wouldn't harm them to show Monsters Inc or A Bug's Life again but I imagine any potential high rating film will be saved for January-March.