I was thinking the same thing. Top Gear could dent Call The Midwife. If it manages 8m again on Sunday Call The Midwife really will be considered a force to contend with.

I'm generalising here of course but surely next week the men will want to watch Top Gear and the women will want to watch Call the Midwife? A good compromise in the interest of household harmony would be to watch one at 8, record the other, and watch it at 9.

Either way it's going to make the BBC very dominant in that slot and it poses yet another headache for ITV. The only thing which might lose out on BBC is Birdsong if viewers follow my example above.

I was thinking something similar. If Call The Midwife was facing something like The Cube it'd be even bigger. Top Gear might slow Call The Midwife's ratings trajectory though. A shame. Now how big will Call The Midwife's timeshift be?

my one spoiler of the week.....

2 CALL THE MIDWIFE (SUN 2001) 9.83

yes it's the second most watched prog on BBC1

And now RTD's new series is officially official with a BBC press release.

Russell T Davies to create new children’s drama for CBBC

Bloody hell nearly a 2m timeshift!!!

Holy crap! That is a huge rating and time shift.

Yet there both hour long programmes at 8 - surely a high rate of same day viewers?

SO watch one then the other. More likely Birdsong will be affected as it loses some of its lead-in to Top Gear.

Amazing figures for CTM though - seriously, we all thought these things were impossible and somehow only a handful of shows got ratings like this, but its about the right scheduling and the right show.

Sherlock/CTM both bringing in amazing figures, BBC should be pushing for more Sunday drama it seems.

I can't see anyone mentioning Top Gear again
Fantastic figure and a fantastic start to the year for the Beeb AND more specifically DRAMA. **** reality

2012 here we go

Downton Abbey went up 1.1m from episode 1 to episode 2 (7.7m>8.8m) in 2010.

Brilliant for Call The Midwife, not just a hit but a monster hit. I can see this one running for at least 5 series of 8 episodes and dominating Q1 Sundays for BBC1 in the years to come.

The highest rated new drama launch in over a decade. Spooks launched with 9.60m in 2002.

data is live now on BARB website

FYI you Twitter guys might want to follow Tom Spilsbury from Dr Who magazine, he seems to be a ratings nut and sometimes post the odd figure on his Twitter feed

9.78m for Sherlock.

Stunning for Call The Midwife - both last night's overnight and last week's official ratings are superb. It seems to have come completely out of the blue - a bit like Downton, where we all expected it to be a hit, but averaging 6-7m, not the huge numbers it's getting. Unbelievable. Birdsong did very well too, I suppose it pales slightly in comparison to CTM but 6m is still very good: it was never going to get Sherlock numbers.

I think ITV should be worried about DOI, the show is really suffering this year. The competition is tougher than ever (and will only get worse next week with Top Gear) but the show still hasn't upped its game - in fact, I think it's got worse. Bleakley is fine tbh, but the panel is dull, the 'celebrities' are so Z-list its ridiculous and the whole thing is just so bland. I really hope ITV get the message this time and sort it out for next year - this is the first year it's regularly been below 8m for the performances, and last night was its lowest EVER performances show and its lowest results show since it moved to Sundays. It'll be interesting to see if it stabilises or falls even further (below 7m for the performances would be a bit of a disaster). It'd be interesting to see a breakdown to see if it grows throughout and the early start hit it, or whether it's pretty flat, and if CTM had an effect when it came on at 8pm. In fairness Wild At Heart's doing pretty damn well - it's only about half a million below last year despite DOI being a good million down and the competition being much, much tougher. 6.7m is very good considering it started halfway through CTM on nearly 9m.

I'm absolutely stunned by that Call The Midwife rating. Absolutely sensational. What a fantastic start to the year for Danny Cohen - they'll be ecstatic with those numbers.

And looking at that episode 1 time-shift it really does look like a monster hit for BBC1.

It doesn't look like my kind of thing but I'm almost curious to see what all the fuss is about.

Many of us do. It was his idea to start the ratings thread on Gallifrey Base which led to this one here.

Ha! It was Tom who started the original 'TV Ratings Thread' at Outpost Gallifrey in 2006. 'Ratings nut' is an understatement!

Sorry Tom

Not quite, in 2006 Lewis launched with 11.31m. Admittedly that was a spin-off, but also in 2006 (on the same night actually!) Wild At Heart launched with 10.83m. Doc Martin also launched with 9.93m in 2004.

Woah, holy Christ!

I had a feeling it might shift to 9m - but not pile on another 800k as well.

Does that mean we can expect c10.4m for episode 2 then?!


Thanks. I might have known...

I thought DA was a more gradual bloomer. Still, interesting to see that both DA and CTM are in the same ballpark for their debut episodes. I wonder if CTM might be topping the Christmas Day 2013 ratings....?

(sorry to bring that subject up again )

It's the highest rated for BBC1 that's for sure but Doc Martin launched with 9.93m in 2004. Downton Abbey's first episode launched with 9.24m as a comparison.

I always suspected Peter Fincham of being a BBC mole, "destroy ITV from within" said the BBC SOE

And Jonathan Ross is doing his bit too.

Fantastic figure for Call The Midwife. On the comparison with Downton I think in many respects these figures are much more impressive given that its been a self starter and hasn't had the benefit of a lead-in from the biggest show on television and is facing some actual competition.


In which case you'd think a move back to Saturday next year (which is looking rather bare for both ITV and BBC1 at the moment) would be the best quick fix for the show.


As overjoyed as I am to see some investment in children's television (although this actually looks like it'll just take over the Sarah Jane budget) this sounds awful. Aliens vs. Wizards? Sounds like the most awful focused grouped 'what do kids like' rubbish.

Yep he tends to post everything very matter of fact, I think he generally hates how the mainstream media reports ratings!

Shame it fell short of the magic 10m marker, but I feared it might just do so.

Superb figures though - seems to me they need to fix it at 8.30-10pm/8-9.30pm to maximise the numbers.


He did mastermind ITV's Christmas Day ratings assault and won (just, natch...).

If he's a secret agent, I suspect he's now gone native!


That makes CTM's stunning debut even more impressive when you realise it outdid DA's debut by an official 600k - and with much tougher competition/smaller lead in.

227k in the officials for American Horror Story. That's nearly six times higher than the overnight 41k. Mega indeed!!