ITV had a financial committment to C4 for several years so the channels were much closer then. Sometimes C4 programmes would be repeated on ITV. I remember Thames made the sitcom Chance In A Million for C4 and that was repeated on ITV.

Possibly the committment ended about this time. Wasn't this the last time new ITV franchises were given out.

Whatever anyone thinks about Piers Morgan, don't forget he's a serious journalist who won't need to take centre stage in this programme the way the likes of Jonathan Ross , Graham Norton or Al Murray do in theirs.

In that way Morgan could become ITV1's equivalent of Mark Lawson on BBC4 whose talk show is highly regarded as a "proper" talk show.

One thing's for sure - TV ratings are boring now compared to the 1980s and 1990s...

Thanks a lot for these . Neighbours used to be such a huge show about 15-20 years ago; the decline the show has seen might be the biggest any show has seen over the last 15 years? Of course factors such as moving to Five can explain some of the decline, but still...

A few Mr Beans in the ITV Top 10 . Can't believe that You've Been Framed and IBAOTN were so popular!

As we're looking at some old ratings right now, here are some ratings from equivalent week 10 years ago:

Official Ratings for week ending 21/02/99

TOP 10 FILMS & TV MOVIES TITLE DAY TIME VIEWERS CHANNEL (m)
1 Beverly Hills Cop III Wed 2000 6.87 BBC 1
2 Silence of the Lambs Sat 2255 4.01 ITV
3 Star Chamber Fri 2230 3.71 BBC 1
4 Escape from Alcatraz Tue 2255 2.62 BBC 1
5 Babysitter's Seduction Mon 2245 2.45 BBC 1
6 Angels One Five Sun 1600 2.34 C4
7 Blame it on Rio Mon 2200 1.88 C4
8 Sleep Baby Sleep Thu 2100 1.85 C5
9 Prison of Secrets Mon 2100 1.83 C5
10 Lady Killer Fri 2100 1.81 C5

TOP 10 CHILDREN'S POPULARITY CHART (no rating)
1 How II Tue 1650 ITV
2 Grange Hill Tue 1710 BBC 1
3 Blue Peter Wed 1710 BBC 1
4 Taz-Mania Mon 0820 BBC 2
5 It's a Mystery Mon 1625 ITV 1
6 Taz-Mania Tue 0820 BBC 2
7 Wild House Wed 1635 BBC 1
8 Hey Arnold! Thu 1615 ITV
9 Blue Peter Fri 1710 BBC 1
10 Romuald the Reindeer Mon 0850 BBC 2

TOP 10 DRAMA TITLE DAY TIME VIEWERS CHANNEL LAST (m)
1 Heartbeat Sun 2000 16.53 ITV
2 Casualty Sat 2005 12.61 BBC 1
3 Forgotten Mon 2100 12.00 ITV
4 Harbour Lights Thu 2000 10.91 BBC
5 London's Burning Sun 2100 10.82 ITV
6 Holby City Tue 2000 9.77 BBC 1
7 Sunburn Sat 2055 9.25 BBC 1
8 Inspector Morse Sat 2055 8.79 ITV
9 Playing the Field Thu 2130 8.16 BBC 1
10 The Lakes Sun 2130 6.80 BBC 1

TOP 10 SPORT TITLE DAY TIME VIEWERS CHANNEL LAST (m)
1 Big Match Live Tue 2000 7.40 ITV –
2 Match of the Day Wed 2220 4.61 BBC 1 –
3 Match of the Day Sat 2240 4.59 BBC 1 3
4 Final Score Sat 1640 4.09 BBC 1 4
5 Rugby Union: Wales v Ireland Sat 1445 3.68 BBC 1 –
6 Football Half-Times (Gstd) Sat 1545 3.33 BBC 1
7 Football Focus Sat 1220 2.83 BBC 1
8 Rugby Union: Eng v Scotland Sat 1630 2.58 ITV –
9 Racing from Ascot (Gstd) Sat 1415 2.09 BBC 1 –
10 Around the Grounds (Gstd) Sat 1435 2.02 BBC

CHANNEL OVERVIEW BBC 1 BBC 2 ITV C4 C5 OTHERS TOTAL
Average hours per viewer 7.7 2.8 8.5 3.0 1.3 3.8 27.1
Audience share % 28.3 10.3 31.4 11.2 4.8 14.0 100.0
DAYTIME share 25.9% 11.3% 25.6% 15.2% 4.3% 17.7%

Interesting that Six Nations afternoon rugby matches in recent weeks have rated better for the BBC than 10 years ago.

Also, Gordon Ramsay's show right now is rating favourably compared to his show 10 years ago :

Yes, just done a bit of research and this commitment officially ended at the end of 1992, when Channel 4 became fully independent from ITV (as agreed in the 1990 Broadcasting Act). Although I think there remained a system whereby ITV would pay Channel 4 if they ever made a loss, but this never happened and that was phased out in 1998 - up until then they were still running cross-promotions for each other despite being in competition!

It was the highest grossing film of it's year of release- '87- as well. Go figure.

It's an embarrasment to the nation, absolute tripe. Great when it started, crap now.


I've never seen it's appeal myself, same with Taggart. Only ever watch it when the computers on the blink and there's nowt else on.

ITV Media:

Law & Order: UK (Mon) - 5.8m

Nice one ITV.

Good Ratings for Law and Order but It should have have got 6m

Yeah, I wonder if BBC1 or ITV1 won the 9.00pm slot? I think it could be close.

Who Do You Think You Are? 6m 25.1%
Heroes 1.5m 6.1%
Law & Order 5.8m 24.2%
Revenge of the Bin Men 1.7m 7.1%
Extreme Fishing with Robson Green 1.4m 5.7%

brand republic

Not a good result for ITV really. Last week they were up 700k on WDYTYA. This week they are down 200k on WDYTYA.

5.8m is still very decent overall but wouldn't want it to drop much further.

Next Monday should be interesting.

BBC1 have 'Comic Relief: A Fools Guide' at 9pm.

This is a repeat from a week or two ago, when it was shown at 10.35pm.

So usually I would say its stupid scheduling. However all I could think when I watched was that I couldn't believe it wasn't given a 9pm slot.

It was a facinating insight into the history of Comic Relief and there was interviews with Tony Blair and Victoria Beckham for it.

I dont know if it will get 6m, but I think it will do alright for them. I'm pleased its being shown again.

I also see that Undercover Princes is being given an outing on BBC1 - Mondays at 10.35pm starting next week.

Yeh, I agree. Nothing wrong with 5.8m, but it must be quite an expensive show and they want to run it for years and years so you dont want it dipping much further this early on.

Kevin Whately on Who Am I? is a bigger star (thanks to ITV! ) than last weeks celeb.

If only Jade was available, we could have the greatest line-up in world history ever!

L&O can't really afford to drop much further than that. Ideally it should be building it's audience, not losing ratings this early on. But the trends for the Monday night dramas this year have been a bit all over the place - it could go up again next week. A lot of it is probably depending on what it's up against each week.

That really should stay on BBC3 where it belongs.

The power of Harry Hill, eh?

The competition from BBC One next week is a lot weaker so I think L&O:UK could see an increase.

From broadcast
Law and order averaged 5.8m. Law and order started off with 6.1m (25.1%) but slowly lost viewers, ending on 5.5m (23.8%)

So what? Stuff like this only tells half the story really. For all we know WDYTYA could have dropped in a similar fashion. Now if WDYTYA rose throughout it's duration in contrast to what has happened here with L&O, then it's worth mentioning. But to me this is a fairly useless snippet of information by itself IMO as I'm sure it is fairly common, especially with dramas, for the audience to drop off during the episode.

Also let's not forget it's lead-in was Corrie so that's always going to have an impact on the figures at the very beginning.

Was it that boring then!?!?!?

K

More seriously, the "available audience" for drama was about 900k higher (because Heroes lost its traditional chunk of viewers because of the BBC3 pre-showing last week) but that audience didn't decide to visit L&O it seems.

Unfortunate wording on my part!

More bleak news just in regarding ITV. 500 jobs to go according to Sky.