Same as last week for the BBC F1 then - despite the first scorching Sunday of the year and wall to wall sunshine across the UK.

Not a pretty breakdown for Titanic at all. Down 21% from the first 15 to the last and consistently shedding viewers throughout.

Might have done better if it was not such a nice day.

Great start. Three times more popular than the Hollyoaks Omnibus going by the last reported figure in here.

Dancing On Ice 7.3m including +1 and peaked at 8.8m. People were talking more about The Voice and BGT going into this weekend than anything else. ITV could have promoted the last TV Burp and Dancing On Ice final more. But to be honest I doubt it would have worked as people didn't really care about either.

What could have been a grim weekend for BBC1 didn't turn out too badly at all.

And the imminent flop of Titanic, given the big switch off last night and critical mauling, should see Silent Witness launch safely next weekend, which then has implications for Scott & Bailey on Monday.

They might well be dragged down with ITV's sinking ship...

It must be a good week for BBC1 when a show you hate The Voice, is one you also praise for it's good ratings!

Didn't like Titanic. UpDown was better better but that show won't be coming back. The Christmas episodes were so promising but the series wasn't as good as those. Shame.

But this was because only a few weeks prior to filming Jean Marsh had a stoke and Eileen Atkins quit leading to complete rewrites. The final few episodes really hit the ground running and last nights showed how much potential it now has.

We just have to see if the BBC have enough faith in Heidi Thomas.

When did I praise The Voice? My initial post yesterday summed up my verdict on the numbers - "bugger".

But one can't get away from the fact it was a very strong number, which will have pleased the BBC enormously. I still hope it drops like a stone though.

The later episodes were really good. I think they should have continued the pace of the Christmas episodes. They whizzed along. As much as I liked Upstairs Downstairs it started too slow. And after thefirst episode gassing the monkey was the new jumping the shark for many.

How did Homeland manage against Titanic?

F1 had 980k with 1.5m peak according to Kevin Bakhurst

2.62m (inc +1)

I saw nothing of interest this week, hence lack of spoilers

anyhoo data for w/e 18th March 2012 is now live on BARB website

enjoy!

Just looking at BARB and the majority of Upstairs Downstairs episodes have been around the 5.55 million marker. I think that is enough to get it another series. Its been in BBC One's top 10 list for each episode.

BARB date suggests Sky Sports F1 was the third most popular Sky Sports channel for the week ending March 18th, after SS1 and SSN.

It's share of 0.4% is twice that of Sky Atlantic - where Luck could only muster 93k in the officials. SSF1's weekly reach was 3,405m.

The average seems to be up a bit on the week, not surprising given the later start/delays, but the peak doesn't seem much higher?

Masterchef posted a respectable looking 6.27m for its final.

Scott & Bailey got a decent enough official of 7.61m, although clearly well down on its 2011 high.

White Heat has disappeared from the BBC2 top 30, which is not very good for what was supposed to be one of the channel's highlights for 2012.

I see the England v Ireland dead rubber rugby match coverage got a very decent 5.8m in a 4.50pm-7pm slot.

I could be wrong but I think the peak last week was only 1.02m.

Still think Sky need to up their game with the post race analysis, I'd expect quite a drop off when the BBC start their live coverage at the next race in China. Nonetheless I'd say Sky are delighted with the ratings so far.

Homeland is one of the few shows C4 have to be cheery about at the minute. It's holding up very well. Much better than I thought it would. It helps that it's a great show.

I'm still not entirely convinced that the 'battle rounds dip' in the US is down entirely to the battle rounds. In season one the start of the battle rounds coincided with a move from a two hour slot starting at 9PM to a one hour slot starting at 10PM (and had to contend with a Dancing with the Stars finale during the battle rounds as well). In season two the first battle round was up week-on-week and produced one of the biggest audiences of the season so far before having to deal with DST and a returning Dancing with the Stars.

Anyone know how the repeat of the voice did on bbc 3 last night.
It's still no.1 on iplayer!!!

Can anyone explain The Voice's "battle rounds" to me, and more specifically, why they might make people switch off?

Titanic was a bit of a boring mess, but I think people will stay tuned to find out if the ship sinks...

The funniest part was noting that Linus Roache makes a far more convincing New Yorker (Mike Cutter - Law and Order and SVU) than he does an English toff.

If it is a choice between Silent Witness and watching the same episode slightly rewritten next week (as it appears all the Titanic eps just rerun things each week from the perspective of different characters) it is no contest for me.

There is not even a repeat showing anywhere to give viewers another night to tune in. And I bet that choice will be to make like rats and desert this ship.

What a shame they did not build the story round some of the stuff in the tabloids this weekend - eg the claim that the Olympic sank instead of the Titanic as an insurance scam to save the White Star Line, or the one today about Winston Churchill being to blame for the building of this botched boat.

That would have at least been better than a pale attempt to redo the Cameron movie without the money or likeable characters.

Next weekend could be a pretty horrible one for ITV. Titanic looks like its going to drop off a cliff next week (and probably get hammered by a returning Silent Witness) and they've got the week two battle with The Voice which has ever potential to be a PR disaster for them as well.

On the plus side for ITV this Voice vs. Talent story is dominating the press which should overshadow some of the negative reaction to Titanic this week. And those two stories combined will completely overshadow the incredibly disappointing numbers for the Dancing on Ice finale. In fact protecting the Dancing on Ice brand is one of the few motives that hasn't come up for ITV stoking the Voice vs. Talent fires. I mean people have barely noticed Dancing on Ice since the whole Voice vs. Talent story erupted a couple of weeks ago...


Essentially its a sing-off between two of the singers on a coaches team. Two members of the same team sing one song together with the coach deciding to put one of them through to the live shows and send the other one home. I'm not entirely sure that it does make people switch off nor am I sure why it would. For my money the best performances on the show elsewhere have been during the battle rounds and usually from unexpected pairings.

I suspect one of the main complaints/points against it though will be that there isn't a public vote. People have an unhealthy obsession with being 'involved' in these type of shows.