It had 842,000 viewers.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...0-tune-in.html

I'm well under 30 but have heard plenty about Dallas, Who Shot JR? Bobby Ewing being killed off then reappearing from the shower a season later, Sue Ellen etc. Its the stuff of TV folklore.

Wow, that's big. That would translate into 11.5m in the UK, just scaling up using population figures. Although I guess it was on a bigger channel than C5 is here?

Interesting tidbit I found on Twitter:

UltimateDallas
Ironically original Dallas was first broadcast on BBC One September 5th 1978. Here we are 34 years later.
11:37 AM - 5 Sep 12

my point exactly

It was also the #1 show in Sweden for the w/e August 26th: 1,465,000 (UK equivalent: 9.6m)

Those Irish figures must be amongst the best TV3 have ever had, a huge launch that should bode well for C5 tonight. I'm not that interested in the show itself (too young!) but will certainly be interested to see how it does.

Also wonder how much C5 paid for Dallas, considering the fanfare they presumably must have had to fend off a good few broadcasters to get the rights?

On another note ITV have officially confirmed that Downton is back on September 16th, 9PM.

It won't be too cheap but tbh I wonder who else would take it.
Its not very 'Sky' like, ITV would probably prefer it on a digital, Ch4 is being Ch4 and its not very them.

I'd think it'd be a mix of free digi channels, smaller subscription ones and maybe BBC Two putting out some feelers.

It kind of 'fits' Ch5 best. Access to a large audience, history of US imports (which won't be cheap but they obviously have relationships over there), sort of fits them as a channel.

The only big financial pressure would have been Sky but as I say - I don't think they'd see much value in the show.

Wow! That really is a brilliant piece of trivia. I'll add to that and say Channel 4 and BBC Television launched on the same date. November 2nd (1982 for Channel 4 and 1936 for BBC Television for the BBC's service to the public. And that my friends is knowledge!

ITV Press Centre ‏@itvpresscentre
Confirmed: Uefa CL: Real Madrid v Manchester City. 7.30pm Tuesday 18 September on @ITV1 @itvfootball #mcfc
2:37 PM - 5 Sep 12

I wonder if that's why it was DIY SOS in the schedules and not Last Tango in Halifax? Possibly suggests that Last Tango in Halifax has been moved to avoid starting low as that will probably be the highest rating game in the Champions League group stages.

I think it will start high and then settle around the 1.5 million mark.

Moved to avoid Downton on Sunday and the football on Tuesday. Smart move but shows on Tuesdays will be facing football at some point anyway now.

I still think it would be best on Sunday at 8pm, it would do very well against X Factor imo. It would mean George Gently losing it's half an hour head start on Downton though.

A Mother's Son has done a really good job for ITV this week, against New Tricks and then in the Tuesday flopzone. It could have been a pretty disasterous start to their new season but at least they're finally registering some good ratings at 9pm.

But the stand out rating must be The Great British Bake Off. I watched it for the first time last night and, to my surprise, I was hooked! It's all a bit bizzare but there I was waiting nervously to see if the creme caramel had the right "wobble". Oh, and Mary is better than all the X Factor judges put together. Same old weekly elimination format with judges and tasks but it works.

Apparently BBC1 might be planning to put a bigger drama on Sundays against The X Factor, but that's mere speculation. Also as good as the Olympic trails were during The Olympics on BBC1, I never saw the logic in not promoting shows that were starting sooner like Last Tango In Halifax for example.

The only big drama I can see fitting there is The Paradise, 8 would be too early for Ripper Street. The Paradise is still filming though so if it is going to air this year it probably won't be ready to November-ish, so they could use Last Tango to establish a 8pm drama slot and then have Paradise start when it finishes.

I did read in the Mirror (not the best source but does sound likely) that Andrew Marr's History of the World will be on at 9 against Downton, and they have too many new dramas to give up that 'drama slot' so I do think it's likely they'll be airing drama at 8.

Wow, those are truly excellent numbers for Dallas in Ireland. TV3's highest ever numbers for an opening episode apparently and nearly twice as many as their highest rated show in 2011.

The interesting thing though reading the thread about it is how narrow the perspective is of many viewers of drama. I thought it was excellent & the tackling of the story from the mothers perspective. But if you look at the thread so many saw it as a bog standard whodunit & were disappointed that the son did it I do think this is so much about how dumbed down particuarly ITV drama has been. It's almost as though there is an expectation that it formalaic so that they know what to expect.

Add to that a strong launch for RTL in Hungary: 1.22m (28% share) and apparently good demos too.

A more modest launch in Denmark: 83,000. But it was still the second most watched programme of the week on the channel it airs on (T4).

The only market where it's disappointed so far is Australia. (dead on arrival for Nine, but scheduled badly)

Thanks for the spoiler!!! Some of us timeshift you know.

Eeek! Just shows how useless the social networking sites can be for gauging this kind of thing.

Surely TV3 will be absolutely over the moon with those figures?! They would appear to be sensational.

I do think Channel 5 have to be hoping for above 3 million at least tonight given the fanfare and publicity over here.

Anything under that would be a disappointment, in my opinion.

I looked on Googles news to see how many articles there are. There are 73 articles written for 'Dallas Channel 5' and there are 19 articles for 'Mrs Biggs'. The media are pushing dallas well. And in Ok magazine there was even a photo of Mr Richard Desmond and the dallas cast. This is how committed Mr Desmond is to publicising his shows, he puts in a lot of effort to make sure his publications give Ch5 shows like Dallas good publicity.

Agreed.

I think they expect it to win the slot. My current feeling is it will just be denied by Mrs Biggs, but it could be very close between the two.

I think it might have got slightly more of a push in the mainstream media had Doctor Who not launched the same week, but c'est la vie. It's still done very well in that regard.

Even Lord Sugar's been telling his 2.3m Twitter followers to tune in!