I'm sure GeorgeS and ITV's crack Operation Stop The Midwives action group are doing just that...

CTM's rise is an early contender for ratings story of the year with some astonishing figures and leading BBC1 to some rare Sunday victories even if theyhave been in recent years very solid anyway. CTM's success I think has been on the back of two excellent opening episodes and word of mouth has seen subsequent increases. Last nights imo was oversentimental and in parts depressing with a sub plot too much on the daft side to balance things out. Those in charge of adapting the stories have got to ensure it does not get too samey and too Eastenders for what will be an interesting set of ratings next year.
Overall the BBC will be very pleased with the way all its Sunday schedulings have gone so far-Bomber Boys and Baftas have done very well keeping up the momentum and it will be interesting to see if the tv equivalent matches the film version. With AR and Countryfile always very solid this must be the strongest Sunday period since Auf Wiedersehen was getting 11 million quite a few years ago.

Monday night battle:

Whitechapel 6.93m (inc HD)
Mrs Brown's Boys 7.25m

A bit of an awkward comparison as Downton Abbey didn't air on STV during series 1 which means not only did the show in Scotland attract fewer viewers than it would have for DA (thus affecting the overnights), they are completely removed in the Officials.

Obviously that is an STV and ITV issue and because of it they have allowed CTM to jump ahead of DA in the stats.

Whitechapel isn't shown in Scotland - unfair comparison. Still brilliant for MBB.

Sunday night battle:

Call the Midwife 10.89m
Top Gear 6.26m
Wild at Heart - less than 7.1m incl HD

Combined BBC1/BBC2 8pm audience - 17.15m!

Amazing for Top Gear to be doing so well against such competition.

I notice that the QI rapid-repeats of the autumn 2011 series are getting better ratings second time round than on a first watch - odd...

Good solid timeshifts for Inside Men and Prisoners' Wives - 5.23m and 5.62m respectively, which puts their disappointing opening overnights in context.

I imagine Inside Men will now be stuck in the 4m's, but PW could well build into the low 6m's after going up week on week?

Hustle back over 6m again - 6.13m, very good and well ahead of L&O when you look at the actual proper ratings...

Casualty continues to deliver very good official ratings - 6.68m means a timeshift of around 1.3m I think.

Top Gear's doing well but that particular episode was down -15% on the same episode last year. WAH meanwhile was down approximately -11%. Top Gear's taking more of a hit than people realise. Hugely impressive timeshift for CTM again and those QI repeats are doing well. Were Prisoner's Wives and Inside Men shown nationwide? If so, those c0.7m timeshifts seem a bit low for dramas. Prisoner's Wives increased week on week so should be fine, but Inside Men does look like it'll fall into the 4s.

Certainly the BBC are having a more than decent start to the year and with The Voice, Euros,Jubilee and Olympics in addition to their usual scheduling this could be quite a year.

I've enjoyed the series and liked last night's episode but thought it wasn't as strong as the others. It's a shame Heidi Thomas can't write them all. I read someone saying they missed the births. That's the thing about the show, if you just show births & deaths each week it'll get samey so you have to mix it up. On the flipside if these are the stories from the books they are the ones that get told.

It's a catch 22 situation.

Only 612k for ESPN's free-to-air Premier League game. Not vastly improved on what they would typically achieve for such a match.

That said, their top 10 consists entirely of programmes that were shown Fri-Sun and therefore available FTA. The Bundesliga appears to have done well with one game over 100,000.

I see what you mean.

Next weeks looks good from the clips.

I agree, but it wasn't competing with a BBC1 offering netting 10.9m!

I doubt the Beeb had even the slightest inkling CTM could achieve such stupefying numbers, so didn't think putting TG out against a probable 6-7m rated drama on 1 was that big a deal.

They might engineer it so TG lines up against Antiques Roadshow in winter 2013.

1 LIVE FORD SUPER SUNDAY - MATCH (SUN 1533) Sky Sports 1 - 2.85m

A whisker away from beating the highest ever Premier League figure. Man Utd v Arsenal got 2.86m (Oct 2004). Although that average didn't include 30 minutes pre-match coverage.

Anyone know what Time Team got?

Sick of hearing about Call the Midwife and Dancing on Ice.

Yes, this is a strange repeat run, they're just showing the entire last series again in the exact same slot, immediately after it ended. That's included the episode they only initially showed in extended form, but they also showed that when they were repeating it late at night over Christmas. Indeed I think some episodes of this series might now have been shown four times in six months. But not the Clarkson episode that was "delayed", which it's remarkable they haven't shown yet given Top Gear is on and everyone's already forgotten the hoo-haa.

That said, BBC2 do repeat QI a lot, a few years back they seemed to be showing it on Fridays at 10pm every single week of the year.


It was opposite England vs Scotland, though, and I don't think many casual viewers would even think of checking ESPN if they don't already have it.

Mrs Brown’s Boys: BARB ratings

Series 1: (10:35pm Monday - BBC1/HD)

Episode 1: 2.84m
Episode 2: 3.19m
Episode 3: 3.48m
Episode 4: 3.85m
Episode 5: 3.94m
Episode 6: 4.11m

Average: 3.57m

Series 2: (9:30pm Monday/Saturday - BBC1/HD)

Christmas Special: 8.24m
Episode 2: 6.60m
Episode 3: 6.29m
Episode 4: 6.37m
Episode 5: 7.05m
Episode 6: 7.25m (AI 92 highest of the week)
Episode 7: 8.31m (AI 91)

Average: 7.16m

HEARTBEAT (SUN 1007) 535k

Not bad for a rerun at that time of day on ITV3. Are the viewers trying to send ITV a message?

Oh you're completely right, but I just think it's interesting that amongst all the talk of ITV's decline on Sundays just now Top Gear's decline is being overlooked, despite the fact that the year on year declines for the episodes just reported on BARB (so last weekend) were:

Dancing on Ice: -12%
Wild At Heart: -11%

Top Gear: -15%

So really all 3 are feeling the effects of CTM to about the same extent, but TG is being overlooked amongst all the fuss over ITV, and DOI in particular. Worth noting that DOI last night was down -19% on the same show last year, but it's timeshifting a little more this year so it'll be more like -17% in the officials. Still a big decline though.

I'm glad someone at BARB has a sense of humour ! It's almost as though MTV is still a credible music channel and the moronic one dimensional Geordies never landed.

iPlayer viewing is probably up though. The 2011 Top Gear Xmas Special received a whopping 1.7m online requests. Up 550k on the previous year.

Re Sunday nights: Don't forget Upstairs Downstairs returns to BBC1 next Sunday.

Five shows on Sky 1 getting over 1 million is that the first time the channel has done this?

Whitney Houston story gave BBC News Channel a reach of 7.1 million yesterday, Sky News 3.8 million - Kevin Bakhurst, BBC News, on Twitter

Looks like it could have boosted The Grammys as well.

http://www.tvline.com/2012/02/grammy-ratings-2012/