I am sure people in the know here have the age demographics - it just seems to be primetime Grange Hill to me - aren't most of the cast teenagers? Putting it against older skewing soaps like EM & CS seemed like a smart move. Let us see how it fares against The Corrie Years next Thursday....

Amazed it did this well to be honest. Not because its bad (I thought it was very good) but because it was relentlessly bleak. The first 30 minutes in particular were just a non-stop misery parade. It'll be interesting to see how it does for the rest of the run though. Unlike everyone else I'm not quite ready to give the win to ITV in this slot for the next few weeks. They haven't exactly been having a great time of it as of late.

I hope Waterloo Road picks up over the next couple of weeks. It's one of my favourite programmes on tv It would be great to see it over 4m. I'll await the first episode official rating with interest...

Thursday 30th August Overnights
BBC One
13:45 - Doctors: 1.3m (16.6%)
18:00 - BBC News at Six: 3.92m (24%)
18:30 - Regional News and Weather: 5.26m (29%)
19:00 - The One Show: 3.51m (18%)
19:30 - EastEnders: 6.67m (32.5%)
20:00 - Waterloo Road: 3.26m (14.1%)
21:00 - Good Cop: 4.06m (17.8%)
22:00 - BBC News at Ten: 4.22m (21%)

BBC Two
19:00 - Diamond League Athletics: 1.35m (6.3%)
21:00 - Volcano Live: 1.5m (6.6%).

ITV1
19:00 - Emmerdale: 5.87m (30.5%)
19:30 - Tonight: 2.37m inc +1
20:00 - Emmerdale: 5.65m (25.4%) , +1: 292k (1.3%)
20:30 - Coronation Street: 6.66m (27.9%) , +1: 274k (1.2%)
21:00 - Doc Martin: 2.42m (10.6%) , +1: 183k (1%)

Channel 4
09:15 - Paralympic Games 2012: 893k inc +1
13:00 - Paralympic Games 2012: 1.30m inc +1
* 1.77m (18.02%) at 16:40
17:25 - Paralympic Games 2012: 1.87m inc +1
18:30 - Hollyoaks: 843k (4.7%)
19:30 - Paralympics 2012 Tonight: 2.44m (11.1%) , +1: 106k (0.5%)
* peak: 3.19m (13.91%) at 21:00
* nearly double slot average of 1.3m (5.81%)

Channel 5
13:45 - Neighbours: 598k (7.6%)
17:30 - Neighbours: 759k (5.6%)
20:00 - Revealed: 1.09m (4.7%)
21:00 - The Hotel Inspector: 1.7m (7.5%) , +1: 132k (0.7%)
22:00 - Celebrity Big Brother: 1.87m (10.6%)

Primetime Shares
BBC One: 18.6%
ITV1: 16.6% (+1: 0.7%)
Channel 4: 9.9% (+1: 0.5%)
Channel 5: 6.1% (+1: 0.3%)
BBC Two: 5.4%

All Day Shares inc +1's
BBC One - 18.4%
ITV1 - 13.8%
Channel 4 - 10.7%
BBC Two - 5.4%
Channel 5 - 5.1%
ITV2 - 3.5%
ITV3 - 2.5%
E4 - 2.4%

Multichannel
4Seven
21:00- 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown: 95k

5*
18:00- Home and Away Classics: 125k (0.8%)
18:30- Home and Away Classics: 137k (0.8%)

BBC Three
22:30- EastEnders: 576k (3.7%)
23:00- Family Guy: 733k (6.2%)
23:20- Family Guy: 898k (9.7%)

Dave (inc +1)
21:00- Qi XL: 369k

E4
18:00- The Big Bang Theory: 721k (4.5%) inc +1
18:30- The Big Bang Theory: 756k (4.2%) inc +1
19:00- Hollyoaks: 463k (2.4%) , +1: 111k (0.5%)
21:00- 2 Broke Girls: 678k (3.0%) inc +1

Film4 (inc +1)
21:00- Dear John: 401k

ITV2
21:00- Benidorm: 776k (3.4%) inc +1
22:00- Celebrity Juice: 1.48m (7.9%) , +1: 315k (3%)
22:45- Lemon La Vida Loca: 701k (5.7%) , +1: 143k (2.3%)

ITV4 (inc +1)
19:30- UEFA Europa League Live - Newcastle United v Atromitis: 891k (4.0%)

More4
18:30- Paralympics 2012: 641k (3.5%)

Yesterday (inc +1)
21:00- Who Do You Think You Are?: 274k

I think Waterloo Road is getting a bit of an unfair kicking this morning. Last night's rating is undoubtably poor but for whatever reason it's been placed in a staggeringly inappropriate slot for it against Emmerdale and Coronation Street where it is always to suffer more than most shows due to the genre clash. Add the Paralympics into the mix and you get last night's rating. I can't see it improving much when Corrie goes as the first half hour will still face Emmerdale, which will still dent it, and I can't see too many tuning in for the second half if they've missed the first. It needs to move back to Wednesdays fast.

They've got a lot of episodes commissioned so it isn't going to be axed anytime soon, and talk of axing it after two episodes in a bad slot is ridiculous. For years now Waterloo Road has rated solidly in that Wednesday slot, and the ratings have been very consistent over the years, so to say it 'isn't the ratings force it once was' is just blatantly wrong, as the ratings (the official ratings anyway) haven't changed much at all since it started (it never really was a 'ratings force' anyway). In terms of the quality of the show, I would say the main problem is that it is very inconsistent. From series to series (and sometimes episode to episode) the quality can vary wildly from some great highs to some dismal lows. As it happens the two episodes of this series have actually been pretty good and the Scotland move, whilst ridiculous, actually hasn't been as bad as I'd feared it would be. I'm pretty sure that if it was moved back to Wednesdays the numbers would be fine and there is no point in getting too wound up about the numbers in that slot. I doubt Casualty or Holby would have rated much better last night in that slot either.

Agree with Score. Once I saw the rating for Waterloo Road I expected a lot of posts about it's "bad" rating.

The things to consider are, it;s not going to face Paralympics every week, Corrie is not on Thursdays anymore, all the soaps were low last night and we are still in August.

If WR is still under 3.5m in 6 weeks time then maybe it's time to start worrying but at the moment it doesn't warrant much attention.

Very good for Channel 4, will see a bolster then for all day shares for them. Did the Paralympic Breakfast Show beat Daybreak?

Be interesting to compare Deal or No Deal figures in its temporary multichannel home, with its usual C4 rating.

I wonder if the Paralympic ratings will mean C4 rethink next week's afternoon schedule.
It seems crazy to shunt the Paralympic coverage over to More 4 so you can show an ancient Simpsons episode.

No.

BBC Breakfast - 1.4m
Daybreak - 500,000
C4 Paralympic Games Breakfast - 200,000

According to Media Guardian (this would be with the +1).

Channel 5's Celebrity Big Brother (2 million/11.1%).

Ah shame Still an OK number thought for C4 i think.

Agree 100%. Have watched it in the past - but that premise was never going to work - how on earth did they agree to it?

C5 will be pleased that with the possible exception of Neighbours, the Paralympics isn't affecting their ratings at all. Everything including CBB performed really well last night. In fact they even managed to increase their Thursday primetime share week-on-week.

The games themselves did well for C4, particularly during the daytime. I think it would be unreasonable to expect much more. As long as they can maintain this kind of level of interest then C4 should be very happy.

Still lower than last series...currently the final would need to rate about 10m for the averages to match.

Well it didn't trounce it at all (let's put the spin the other way shall we? - "Brand New BBC Drama musters only 1.5m more than repeat trotted out by ITV"). I don't have any problem with the ITV clowns who decide to change their schedule and move something if they think it won't work. Indeed, we could accuse ITV of not doing this often enough in the past!

Your criticism is unfair - let's see how they do next week as they roll out 3 new dramas, a couple of new programmes and a returning quiz favourite in a new slot. I think they are being quite bold next week - perhaps getting back to the ITV of old?

BTW whatever did happen to that repeat run of Call The Midwife? Pulled from the schedule if I remember.....

The last series was in January. This series is in August = unfair comparison.

A bit like criticising a drama screened in August "because it was lower than a drama broadcast in January". Well, duh.

Are you still talking about this? It started with 900K LESS than the previous season. Of course the viewers were not going to be appearing out of thin air. To be fair it is holding up EXTREMELY well against the Paralympics. Look at the soaps ratings they dropped by around 1.5m. And they are not down by that much, only by around 200k. With officials, I predict around 2.4m official, which is 200k down on the one before. No big deal considering that was on in the winter. The shares are pretty similar

Paralympic Games is just about hitting the highs I would have guessed, for its first day, not helping Hollyoaks either, which has to be a worry for C4. Not hat any of the other soaps are doing any better.

Daybreak wise these figures dont really matter, its next weeks relaunch that matters.

They didn't have much choice. When it was filmed in Rochdale it was a BBC Scotland production. Some bright spark in London then had the idea of moving production to Greenock.Just because it's a BBC Scotland programme it doesn't have to be made in Scotland as it still goes down as a BBC Scotland contribution to the network.Much of Merlin is filmed in France but is a BBC Wales production (although the interiors are done in Cardiff).

How did episode 2 of Mount Pleasant do for Sky Living on Wednesday night?

I really hope it has some good ratings for this second run, its not a bad show. Having said that the first two episodes of this new season have felt a little weak.

Paralympics ratings good, Channel 4 coverage bad. Adverts, a race, some slack punditry for a couple of minutes, then more adverts, really this should be on BBC Two. Fair play to Channel 4 for bidding for what is part of their minority remit( often neglected these days), but the coverage is hopeless and Jon Snow has about as much impact as the Olympics hosted by Moira Stuart.
Yet well done to our Paralympians all the same

Waterloo Road and Merlin are both made by independent companies (Shed and Shine). Do the BBC tell them where to film them?

I think the recommission of Waterloo Road was conditional on Shed moving production to Scotland.

I'm a BBC fan but I don't want to see ITV fail.

Mrs Biggs and Dallas will do fine against each other I think. Also Good Cop is a good drama but it's also a trademark BBC1 gritty, bleak drama. With all the promotion it has received I don't think 4.1m is that great. It probably would have been over 5m had ITV not put on a Doc Martin repeat. The Bletchley Circle will have more appeal and will win by 2m I'd say.

It's good that so much good TV is coming from numerous broadcasters. We should all be happy not snippy!