Many people seemed optimistic about ITV's scheduling of MW but I said from the beginning that it would turn out like another Tuesday flop zone and it's actually come out much worse! Also that Al Murray rating must be one of ITV's worst starts for a 9pm series ever. Although the rugby did win the slot and BBC2 will be around 2 million down on that next week which suggests MW and Al Murray could possibly go up slightly. Though all of this is ITV's fault for rushing into scheduling the series when it wasn't even ready to air yet and scheduling it in the same slot it flopped in before.

I can see how EE and the second Corrie were affected by the rugby, but why are Emmerdale and the first Corrie so so low??

Also has anyone got ratings for CH4 and FIVE-particuarly 8-11pm?

Just an overall round-up then....

Friday 27th February 2009
BBC One
20:00 - EastEnders - 7.65m (33.2%)
21:00 - QI - 3.79m (16.4%)
21:30 - Not Going Out - 3.19m (14.6%)
22:35 - Friday Night with Jonathan Ross - 3.1m (22.9%)

BBC Two
20:00 - Six Nations Rugby Union: France vs Wales - 4.06m (17%)

ITV1
19:00 - Emmerdale - 6.49m (32%)
19:30 - Coronation Street - 8.67m (39.7%)
20:30 - Coronation Street - 7.76m (32.5%)
21:00 - Moving Wallpaper - 2.12m (9.2%)
21:30 - Al Murray's Multiple Personality Disorder - 1.92m (8.9%)
22:00 - Pushing Daisies - 1.2m (6.8%)

Source: sonny2001 and dubsj above.

By my reckoning [providing we go by the theory that the 20:00 got about a 15% share... dunno what that got, but for the sake of things] the ITV primetime share between 19:00 and 23:00 is about 18.86% which for a Friday is very poor.

I'm interesting in The One Show and Watchdog figures... if they were high then that would explain the low'ish Emmerdale/Corrie figures. If ToS got over 6m then......

C4
PLACE IN THE SUN; 1.23m - 5.2%
RAMSAY; 2.47 - 10.9%
FREE AGENTS; 0.75 - 4%
LEE MACK; 0.86 - 6.2%

C5
POLICE INT; 1.26 - 5.4%
NCIS; 2.41 - 10.6%
NUMB3RS; 1.27 - 7.2%

THE ONE SHOW got 4.9m, 24% and Question Of Sport straight afterwards got 3.67m, 16.9%

Wow. Low night all around me thinks......

ITV bottom in 9pm slot then!

It also seems that viewers just can't warm to Al Murray. I think when people watch these types of shows the viewers have to like something about the person or else they won't tune in. All those years ago when he won the Perrier Award at The Edinburgh Fringe he should have gone to BBC2 or Channel 4 to make Time Gentlemen Please and build up a fanbase then when he went to ITV he would have expanded on that.

He's pretty much gone in at the deep end on ITV without establishing himself with a large enough bunch of viewers. Not sure that he'll ever appeal to a mainstream audience on ITV and would be better off on BBC2/Channel 4.

Primetime Shares - 19:00 to 22:00 [Estimate]
ITV1 - 22.88%
BBC One - 19.85%
BBC Two - ~14%?
Channel 4 - ~8%?
five - ~7%?

- Despite being bottom throughout the 21:00 slot, ITV will be top through primetime due to their soap hour.

Great night for FIVE remaining unaffected by the rugby and NCIS benefiting from no crime drama on ITV1. I can see it continuing to increase now. CH4 and FIVE will definetely benefit from ITV's poor 9pm offering. Also at a guess (no 10pm BBC2 figures to hand) I would say Numb3rs came 2nd in its slot which is great for FIVE!

It's Friday evening and the weather's picking up. It may still be February but it's been quite Springy this week.

He's just not funny.

I don't know why ITV keep giving him work. Does he have some candid photos that someone wants kept hidden?

Rab C. Nesbitt got 1.7m, 9% on BBC2 at 10.

A couple of other gaps;

OUTTAKE TV 3.39m, 14.3%
TONIGHT 2.81m, 12.1%

750k for Free Agents

Quick, move it to E4 ASAP!

Get The Friday Night Project back along with Balls of Steel.

Many thanks for the ratings sonny2001.

I think that's all the gaps mainly done for Primetime, so:

Friday 27th February 2009
BBC One
19:00 - The One Show - 4.9m (24%)
19:30 - A Question Of Sport - 3.67m (16.9%)
20:00 - EastEnders - 7.65m (33.2%)
20:30 - Outtake TV - 3.39m (14.3%)
21:00 - QI - 3.79m (16.4%)
21:30 - Not Going Out - 3.19m (14.6%)
22:35 - Friday Night with Jonathan Ross - 3.1m (22.9%)

BBC Two
20:00 - Six Nations Rugby: France vs Wales - 4.06m (17%)
22:00 - Rab C. Nesbitt - 1.7m (9%)

ITV1
19:00 - Emmerdale - 6.49m (32%)
19:30 - Coronation Street - 8.67m (39.7%)
20:00 - Tonight - 2.81m (12.1%)
20:30 - Coronation Street - 7.76m (32.5%)
21:00 - Moving Wallpaper - 2.12m (9.2%)
21:30 - Al Murray's Multiple Personality Disorder - 1.92m (8.9%)
22:00 - Pushing Daisies - 1.2m (6.8%)

Channel 4
20:00 - A Place in The Sun - Home or Away - 1.23m (5.2%)
21:00 - Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares USA - 2.47m (10.9%)
22:00 - Free Agents - 750,000 (4%)
22:30 - Lee Mack Live - 860,000 (6.2%)

five
20:00 - Police Interceptors - 1.26m (5.4%)
21:00 - NCIS - 2.41m (10.6%)
22:00 - NUMB3RS - 1.27m (7.2%)

Source: sonny2001

The primetime share for BBC One from 19:00 to 22:00 is about 19.9%, with ITV's share about 22.4%.

Amazing really that ITV still win the Primetime Shares by some margin despite shares of under 10% in the 21:00 hour. I'm waiting for ITV's Twitter to put out a statement like "Moving Wallpaper performed solidly on Friday to help ITV wil the primetime shares with a share of 22.4 percent."

So, what will ITV put out at 9pm next Friday then?:

- Touch of Frost rpt
- Midsomer Murders rpt
- Lewis rpt
- Taggart rpt
- Tomorrow Never Dies?



The Beeb clearly should have had the confidence to put the rugby out on BBC1 against a weak ITV line up, and held the comedy over a week and an hour long EE on Thursday.

Well, I do remember commenting when ITV1's Friday line-up was announced that the most fun to be had would be seeing if ITV1 could manage to get three consecutive prime-time shows to win an audience of under 2m.

They just failed by 0.13m.

But I never seriously expected they could perform as bad as this.

ITV's ratings bring more belly laughs than their comedies...

No it's not. Would be hard for ITV not to win primetime share for that 3 hour period you've defined when 1.5hrs of it is taken up with soap, to BBC1's 30 mins!

Perhaps you meant to say, "it's amazing really that ITV's primetime share was only 2.5 points (TBC) ahead of BBC1's despite having its big two soaps taking up half of primetime."

Only Robbie could gloat about ITV getting 2m when BBC1 just about scaped 3m for most of the night.

I hope you get your wish & get more soaps & crime dramas in primetime.

I dont know why people are so shocked at the result of teh ratings last night.

The Big Game with Wales and France where Wales unfortunately lost had 4m viewers.

EastEnders and Coronation Street' 2nd Episode were affected badly. EastEnders is down from 9.3 from Thursday's episode and down from 9.1 on Coronation Street's Wednesday Episode.

Bad Night for TV in General.

Trying to see if total audience levels did drop off a lot last night compared to last Friday:
Time/Last Nights Figures/Last Weeks Figure
19:00 to 19:30 - 20.41m/21.08m --> decrease of 670,000
19:30 to 20:00 - 21.71m/22.38m --> decrease of 670,000
20:00 to 20:30 - 23.04m/22.84m --> increase of 200,000 ---> time when Wales/France started?
20:30 to 21:00 - 23.87m/23.55m --> increase of 320,000
21:00 to 21:30 - 23.04m/23.01m --> increase of 040,000
21:30 to 22:00 - 21.57m/22.86m --> decrease of 1,129,000 --> time when it ended, people turned off?
22:00 to 23:00 - 17.64m/17.79m --> decrease of 150,000

News At Ten is back on Friday 13th March:

8:30pm Coronation Street
9:00pm Moving Wallpaper
9:30pm Al Murray's Multiple Personality Disorder
10:00pm News at Ten and Weather
10:35pm Pushing Daisies

That means we'll have sub 2m for four consecutive programmes (or two and a half hours!).

Only you could deflect attention away from some of ITV's worst prime time ratings in history by having a pop at me...


Not necessarily. The rugby match stirred things up a bit, and it looks like TV audiences overall weren't particularly down on last week.

I do think Friday night telly needs a shake-up. New-wave comedy just isn't pulling its weight when much of the target audience is out and should go out some other night. Traditional sitcoms just aren't being made full stop, and ITV's 2nd Corrie has killed anyway the EastEnders/sitcom combo that has worked for BBC1 so well over the years.

Assuming ITV1 sticks with MW/Murray next week, then I would expect QI to get a bit of a boost with no rugby. Not Going Out just seems stuck at 3-3.5m and nothing will probably change that. It's too good to be axed, so I hope the Beeb tries it in some other slot.

But I think BBC1 should try mainstream drama on Fridays - Waking the Dead, Hustle, Hunter etc. ITV has shown that there's an audience.

It was a great game. I agree with Robbie that the BBC made a mistake in not airing it on BBC One where it may have performed even better.

I do wonder how this evening's clash will perform. Certainly England are going to lose but should be a cracker all the same.

Poor for ITV's 9pm offerings. I really didn't expect them to rate so badly and coming last in their slots! Surely ITV will now take some action and move them into other slots - 5 more weeks of these kind of ratings will be embarassing.

The rugby rated fantastically on BBC2, denting the BBC1 and ITV1 ratings. Both the second Corrie and EE are well down from last week's episodes, but for some reason Emmerdale didn't rate that well either and it wasn't up against the rugby.

I can see it doing very well. The last half an hour ominously clashes with The Colour of Money. They should rename it "The Colour of Ratings"... the only colour they'll see is red which will signal in my view under 3m viewers.

MW should have been run at 2200 on Sundays, with Piers Morgan's new chat show on Fridays at 2100.

MW is a great show but not the kind of comedy ITV1 is used to. It's most similar to the 90s Michael Barrymore comedy "Bob Martin"- a show which had moderate success in a late Sunday slot.