According to Twitter ITV's highest rated show of the night was The Chase with 3.3m.

Ok, forgot those. Something like this perhaps would be an even stronger line-up for BBC1 against ITV1's strong Sunday line-up:

17:30 - Countryfile
18:30 - SCD Results
19:00 - The Paradise
20:00 - Antiques Roadshow
21:00 - New Drama

So WWTBAM was lower than that, The Chase lower than last week's show but still respectable.

and also that the briilaint Chase is rating so poorly.

But compensation that it managed to outrate the tedious MIllionaire.

The Chase always rates around that, the daytime version always seems to rate around 1-2 million.

Hard to describe any of ITV's night as "respectable" if low 3's was the best they could muster in Sunday primetime with all new programming including an expensive drama. That sounds more like a disaster to me. The demo shares reveal it was an old-skewing lineup too. Where are the positives?

Also it had trees in, like Birdsong
I didn't find any trouble and the last prog to have sound complaints was Line of Duty anyway.

Meanwhile double dipping is too rare, its new viewers watching the show after hearing from their friends or seeing it on iplayer.

Its also been featured on iplayer since its been on.


You trying to get a job on digitalspy there?
Not respectable at all, time that show and others like You've Been Framed were kicked dropped off the station. They are done.

The Chase should be on a Saturday, its doing nothing special on a Sunday.

It's been ages since the daytime version was that low. All new episodes have been rating 2m+, often closer to 3m. It beats Pointless most days.

That's wasting Countryfile's ratings potential.

Maybe The Paradise will go out on Wednesday at 8pm. If ITV1 are turning that slot into a light entertainment slot with All Star Mr And Mrs then it's a good option for BBC1. It would also explain why they've moved Waterloo Road to Thursdays. The Flowerpot Gang ends September 5th.

Ah, but, Line Of Duty had a drop between parts 1 and 2 (before steadying at about 3.2m). Maybe it's their ears. BUY A HEARING-AID!

Has the 'older children's block at 10am on weekends been rating well? Looney Tunes at least is beating the CBB repeat

Does MOTD ever go out that late? I think it used to but now they try to get it on air by 22:30 at the latest (I could be wrong.)
I would swap the news and comedy around there, or put Apollo on after MOTD about midnight.
It gets a little bit tricky, doesn't it, as SCD varies in length as it goes on, dropping say 5 mins a week as ppl are voted out, then lengthening when they start doing 2 dances each.
Also, when does the Lottery drop to 10 mins again? That's another variable.

2.2% share for the older children's block. Batman is doing better than Power Rangers, peaking at 259k/3.6%. Both programmes are performing above the slot average.

According to Wikipedia, the wedding of Princess Anne and Mark Phillips got 27.60 million on BBC1 on 14th November 1973, and that was a single showing. Does this mean that the closing ceremony isn't the most watched programme on a single showing of all time in the UK after all?

I gave it half an hour on iPlayer and gave up. In truth it's not my sort of thing so I had no real incentive to persevere. But if it was a struggle for me, in my thirties, in good health and with decent hearing, goodness knows how the core demographic managed...


The fightback, er, starts... er, sometime....


What are you talking about? Any Welshman would tell you that's a perfectly pronounceable acronym - "coot bamsol". What's difficult about that?

From Twitter:

"@LiamHamiltonDCD: Double bill Super Sunday does good business, c1m for Arsenal draw, 1.3m for L'pool v Man City: followed on Sky Sports 1 with 200k+ for Barca"

These Premiership figures don't look that good to me. Are these normal for the early part of the season?

No, it means they worked it out on the back of a fag packet after stopping 30 people in the street.

The notion that Princess Anne's wedding averaged 28m viewers, on one channel, is implausible.

I forgot that Peter Kay was on last night on 4, so that probably mopped up a few million, despite it being a showing of a tour that he's already released on DVD about 10 times.

If WWTBAM was lower than 3.3m, it seems quite odd, as it is usually quite solid.

Lol, nice one. I think that might be Welsh for "ratings failure"...

It usually rates around 3m I thought?

...and it was on a work day. No day off for either Ann & Mark or Andy & Fergie!!

You would expect a boost on a Sunday at 8, one of the peachiest of slots in terms of available viewers. But then it is a bank holiday weekend...

Pretty obvious Sky aren't going for big overnights!! They've been hyping this show for nearly a year and give it a tough slot opposite the type of show it's parodying!!

Same with Mount Pleasant, successful returning show now being used to big up Sky Living, but by the third episode will be up against Mrs Biggs and Dallas.

The last one did, but it was on at 7pm. Normally the celebrity specials do better:

Fri 15/07/11 'School's Out Special' 21:00: 4.73m (inc. +1)
Sat 20/08/11 'Soap Star Special' 21:15: 4.5m (inc. +1)
Wed 09/11/11 'Remembrance Special' 20:00: 4.6m (inc. +1)
Mon 19/12/11 'Christmas Special' 20:30: 4.73m (inc. +1)
Tue 03/01/12 'New Year Special' 20:00: 3.65m (inc. +1)
Sun 18/03/12 'Mother's Day Special' 20:30: 5.59m (inc. +1)
Sun 20/05/12 'Couples Special' 19:00: 3.24m (inc. +1)

So very consistent around the 4.5-5m mark in 2011. This year the first episode was affected by being part of the Tuesday flopzone and the third went out too early, but the one in between was the highest rated episode in a long time. So what went wrong last night?

George Gently did well. It never ceases to amaze me how TV bosses axe shows or reduce series then realise they've got a popula show and reverse the decision. The last series of Merlin was meant to be 10 episodes then they put it back up to 13 and it had its best performing series so far. Gently was meant to to be 2 episodes then it did wonders against The X Factor and they changed that decision. Then ITV stupidly axed Foyle's War and that's due to return next year. Stupid TV bosses.