Agreed!

Perhaps more people did not want to bring the new year in with death and misery???

I think people do sometimes have little belief in the public's ability to find new shows, start times etc, and that a big lead-in will make people stay with a channel.

My favourite example of this is BGT picking up 10m+ viewers and being followed by The Prisoner with 2m viewers. If the show is not good, people will not stay!

Excluding adverts, the Downton Abbey Christmas Day episode had about 8.5m (exc +1) in the overnights. With timeshift, its Christmas Day episode may well rate as well or higher than the Sherlock episode in the consolidated ratings.

Sorry but all 3 points made there are complete rubbish

Nobody expected ITV to beat EE, they did however expect them to do better than they did.

3.5m isn't good, it's extremely poor, lower ratings for other programmes in other slots at other times are totally irrelevant

and lastly, last night was hardly a 'Sunday' it was New Year's Day.

Steve, I think WAH vs. Sherlock is a much closer battle. I can see both shows averaging around 7.5m.

I wonder if tonight's EE might actually beat last night's, as it is in the high rating normal Monday corrie sandwich, and nobody will be going out.

No early entrants into the 2012 10m club as yet, although EE may do in the finals.

That'll be an interesting comparison to see. Will Christmas Day consolidated figures be released today?


It'll be an interesting battle. And, of course, anyone who wants to watch both dramas won't be able to use ITV1+1 to help them out cos of Sherlock's 90 minute run-time.

Disappointing for EastEnders, I was hoping for it to comfortably clear 10 million and be near 11 million. The rest of the BBC line-up on both BBC One and BBC Two performed fantastically though, great ratings for Sherlock and Absolutely Fabulous.

Awful for ITV, even lower than 2010's New Year's Day primetime share: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...postcount=2025

They must have expected >5.5m for Harry Potter. I imagine their plan was Potter yesterday, HP7 P1 on 1/1/13 with HP7 P2 on 1/1/14, yesterday's rating may make them think again, depending of course what the opposition does on those two days...

Yep, Christmas Day consolidated figures should hopefully be out later today.

My prediction is:

1. EE: 11.4m
2. DW: 10.8m
3. DA: 10.7m (exc +1)

It could rate the same. CS will probably do 9 million tonight as it's the first week of the year. Actually for EE, if you add on the BBC Three repeat, it's broken the barrier.
I often wonder what will be the highest rated programme of 2012. Should England get to the quarter finals of the Euros and meet someone like Germany, I'll go for 20 million.

IMO EE deserved over 10m.

Noticing how well The Worlds Strongest Man is continuing to do on Channel 5.

Talking of DA, I wonder if the teatime repeat yesterday outdid ITV's flop primetime offerings last night?

1.5 million is good for a tournament the main channels consider an anachronism. Perhaps Five should invest a bit more in these tournaments, as I do remember The World's Strongest Woman, and maybe go for a UK Superstars revival.
People on here seem quick to knock Channel 5 and fair enough like every other station, they can churn out some junk, but a lot of their programmes are better than the critics think.

BBC Two did very very well considering.


Oh! SHERLOCK! We love you. I also think despite the competition it'll be up next week
HP collapsed for the simple reason of branding. Its one of the poorest books/films (with nothing really going for it) add to this the amount of HP repeats of recent. No one would have known it was new frankly.
Under the strong competition it got wiped out (also poorly scheduled)

Once the title 'Part One' and 'Part Two' appear - they'll be back up.

EE did okay - bit down, but not surprising - also the peak makes it obvious people tuned in throughout - not knowing it was on at first.

I don't think ITV will have a better Sunday next week. Both their shows are what I consider 'soft' in the ratings. With the Curse of Bleakly as well DOI will be down - add lack of promotion/noise and its not looking good. Then WaH is very much just a sunday time waste - opposing Sherlock, a high minded crime thriller - and one of the best shows of the 21st century.


Robbie spinning things against the Beeb - am guessing you dislike something about Sherlock's existence as oppose to the actual content?

I realise I did the BBC and Doctor Who a disservice earlier.

What I should have posted was:

Christmas Dramas Battle - overnight ratings

1. Doctor Who 8.9m
2. Sherlock 8.8m
3. Downton Abbey 8.1m

Looks like the Beeb and Steven Moffat did the double over Downton then!

(Subject to confirmation of the consolidated ratings - suspect 2 and 3 will swap round when they come through, but probably all >10m)

If promoted well I don't see why the occasional Sunday episode of EE couldn't pull in decent ratings depending on the storyline. Back in the 90s they put quite a few specials out on Sundays and they performed well IIRC.

As for last night I don't think 9.7m for EE is bad to be honest given the length of the episode and the unusual time slot. In the officials it could be close to 11m.

The most impressive rating for me is Sherlock. Ab Fab did okay but who is watching this dross. I used to like the show back when it started but now it's just not funny.

Disappointing for Harry Potter it has to be said. People were predicting 6m for it on here. I thought it would really dent EE.

I think I was on a bit of a downer after a miserable and depressing EastEnders, distracted by watching Sherlock as a group which meant we all got horribly confused by it all, and somewhat disappointed by AbFab. And I was a bit worse for wear.

I have already rewatched the first half hour of Sherlock on iPlayer; makes a lot more sense. Perhaps that's how it timeshifted so well for s1 - people having to watch it twice...

A few more ratings from yesterday:

Great Barrier Reef: 3.26m (11.4%) inc HD
A History of Ancient Britain Special: 2.38m (8.7%) inc HD

The Unforgettable: 1.63m (7%) , +1: 153k (1%)

Hacks: 590k (2.8%) , +1: 67k (0.5%)

The Most Shocking Celebrity Moments of 2011: 680k (4.1%)

Source: Broadcast

I still think 4 million is OK for ITV1 and it was a reasonable alternative for non soap fans. However, the end of an iconic soap character always bangs up the soap ratings.
Ab Fab was poor on Christmas Day so I didn't bother. It's better to watch the repeats of these old sitcoms than to revive them. The BBC found a similar problem with To The Manor Born, even though it attracted bigger ratings.

That's a fantastic rating considering the opposition, and the fact it was only a hair's breadth behind ITV's big NYD movie premiere!

It was 3.4m though....

no she is the girl who made a massive show of selling out for the big money, despite being warned against it, and failed, whatever she is presenting people will see her like that.

Lets face it, playing co host to Philip Schofield only requires a competent presenter nothing more.


good news for Sherlock, well done all involved.



agreed, I had hoped it would get 10 million plus, but we could say that it did well outside of its normal time slot, if we want to spin it.


oops I know I said I cant see many people watching it, but I was not expecting less than 3.5 million, this was the premiere on free to air TV of course.

Decent for sky and I never said last night, well done to Merlin for its time-shift, a totally unreported smash hit for the BBC.

7 million for AbFab, in short an AbFab night for the BBC.

Dame Edna suffered on C5. ITV wont be making anymore "The Unforgettable"s, it seems that even if they are unforgettable, people dont care.

Super night for BBC2 it seems, okay, not on the level of 6m for Eric and Ernie last year, but still super for the channel.

Hacks did atrociously for Channel 4 though.

Considering BGT was fairly stable I think Cowell returning should keep it at least level. I think too after the poor talent last year the producers will ensure better acts get through - and also it now being the only show they can audition infront of Cowell on means they might get a few more singers of notes too - though hopefully decent variety acts outnumber them.


I think AGT will just get the standard UK/International music and logo, rather than the original they've stuck with since the first season. As for 4 judges - didn't Simon say that was one of the biggest mistakes of his career and that 4 judges simply didn't work when he hired and fired Kelly Brook within three days.


It'll hit Wild at Heart more than DoI (performance shows) thanks to the scheduling inviting people to turn over. Obviously though those switching to Sherlock won't switch back for the DoI results. I wonder whether extending the DoI results through to 10.15pm to invite the audience back at 10pm for the actual result would boost the figures for the 9.30pm show nicely enough to compensate for them making it easier for people to watch Sherlock instead.


Or he choked on his hat.


Will be interesting to know considering a month or so ago someone predicted an Adele music special would get something like 8-10m viewers. I suspect though it did rather well in it's NYD slot last night - but could be anything from 2m to 6m really.


Thanks Steve. And odd scheduling for the FA Cup highlights - I'm sure Round 1 & 2 got earlier slots.


It would surely be good news for ITV if Downton fans stuck around for the ads (or ad fans stuck around for Downton as some might interpret it!). On Christmas night though most folks can't move themselves off the sofa so they probably do stick with the ads - indeed I think I saw more ads on Christmas Day than I have in the months beforehand thanks to watching virtually everything live.

I'm sure it was 4 million with ITV1+1.
Hacks must have really annoyed Channel 4 as they had trailed it all day and to attract 680,000 is pathetic.

BBC One averaged 32.4% between 19:00 to 22:10, meaning it averaged 22.0% between 22:10 to 23:00 last night so Adele couldn't have done massively well.