The Children:
01/09/08 - 5,450,000
08/09/08 - 5,200,000
15/09/08 - 5,170,000
AVERAGE: 5,273,000
CHANGE: -5%

Place of Execution:
22/09/08 - 6,550,000
29/09/08 - 5,040,000
06/10/08 - 4,930,000
AVERAGE: 5,506,000
CHANGE: -25%

Wired:
13/10/08 - 5,230,000
20/10/08 - 4,410,000
27/10/08 - 3,550,000
AVERAGE: 4,397,000
CHANGE: -32%

The Commander:
10/11/08 - 5,780,000
11/11/08 - 5,520,000
12/11/08 - 6,330,000
AVERAGE: 5,877,000
CHANGE: +10%

Taggart:
03/11/08 – 5,260,000
08/12/08 – 5,300,000
15/12/08 – 6,180,000
AVERAGE: 5,580,000

Above Suspicion:
04/01/08 – 7,310,000
05/01/08 – 8,000,000
AVERAGE: 7,655,000
CHANGE: +9%

Unforgiven:
12/01/08 – 7,200,000* (7,820,000)
19/01/08 – 5,520,000*
26/01/08 – 6,510,000*
AVERAGE: 6,410,000
CHANGE: -10%

*Overnight rating, official rating in brackets

Some more ITV 2008 Series Averages:

DRAMA:
Lewis - 8.6m
Wild At Heart - 8.2m
Primeval - 6.3m
Kingdom - 5.7m
Trial and Retribution - 5.5m
Wire In The Blood - 5.2m
The Fixer - 4.9m

ENTERTAINMENT AND COMEDY:
The X Factor – 10.5m
Britain’s Got Talent – 10.2m
Dancing on Ice – 8.9m
I’m A Celebrity – 8.7m
Saturday Night Takeaway -7.3m
Benidorm – 6.0m
All Star Family Fortunes – 5.8m (autumn run)
All Star Mr and Mrs – 5.5m (not inc xmas special)
Beat The Star – 4.5m

Feel free to correct any errors or add some more.

You can see the affect ITV's change of schedule has had on Wild at Heart and Dancing on Ice: The Skate Off. Wild at Heart is 1m down on 2008, The Skate Off is down by 1.5m (going on the figures above - is that just the main show only or both main and results? ) Trial and Retribution is holding up well on Friday nights, though.

I'm still wondering what happened to Family Fortunes considering in the autumn it didn't always have The X Factor as a lead in, yet performed consistently then.

Considering what happened to the rest of the Sunday night 7pm programmes, Beat the Star did pretty well.

I guess Demons replacing Primeval, the change in Sunday schedule, Emmerdale being weaker against EastEnders than in January 2008 and Tuesday's and Thursday's still being a bit of a mess have all resulted in ITV's share being lower than this time last year.

Where are the figures for Brittania High, The Palace, Rock Rivals, Harley Street and Echo Beach.

Thanks for the series averages C14E. They make interesting reading.

I've collated some BBC One Drama averages from 2008:

New Tricks - 8.83m
Doctor Who - 8.05m
Lark Rise to Candleford - 6.70m
Waking the Dead - 6.66m
Ashes to Ashes - 6.61m
Silent Witness - 6.36m
Merlin - 6.32m
Wallander - 6.03m
Hustle - 5.54m
Spooks - 5.54m
Survivors - 5.09m
Mistresses - 4.87m
Hotel Babylon - 4.83m (aprox.)
Bonekickers - 4.82m

A lot of 5 million plus returning Dramas at the BBC's disposal then - probably not many more titles than ITV, but I think lots more longer series.

I might have a look at other factual, entertainment and comedy tomorrow if I have the time.

6pm
The Simpsons Ch4 2.51
Hollyoaks Ch4 1.89

8pm
The Bill ITV1 5.3
Wateloo Road BBC1 4.4
Relocation Relocation Ch4 3.1 (230K +1)
Its Not Easy Being Green BBC 2.0
Masterchef BBC2 2.9
Ice Road Truckers FIVE 1.6

9pm
Secret Life of Elephants BBC1 4.1
Grand Designs Ch4 4.1 (224k +1)
Taggart ITV1 3.6
The City Uncovered BBC2 1.4
The Hard Corps FIVE 1.1

10pm
Worlds Cleverst Child & Me Ch4 2.26


Digital
90210 E4 180,000
Grand Designs Channel 4+1 224,000

Source: MG, Channel4

Dancing On Ice is both main shows and results (equally weighted). Officials for the first 2 weeks this year have the skate off about a million down on last year's first 2 shows. The main show is in the middle, lower debut than last year but a better second show rating.

Wild At Heart's first 2009 episode was 800,000 lower than 2008 but the second episode closed the gap to just a 200,000 decline.

Trial and Retribution is doing OK. Last series was massively hit by the arrival of Ashes to Ashes in that slot which skewed the average lower. Moving it to Fridays means that while the ratings for the first few episodes might be lower, they should at least be consistent.


FF wasn't that consistent, I think it might have depended on whether or not it had the XF lead-in:
High - 6.89m
Low - 4.40m
Avr - 5.80m

But I do agree that it seems to be well off the pace this year. I thought it would always be good for 4m against poor BBC opposition.


Too low to have all the episodes in the weekly top 30's, so no offficial average could be calculated.

Seems like it bounced back as predicted.

What did Bonekickers drop down to by the time it finished? Waterloo Road has this series of about 3000 episodes which doesn't seem justified compared to some other shows which were axed. I know BK was dire, entertaining but dire, but surely you can make changes given another series. I see it averaged 4.82 million, which doesn't seem so bad compared to other shows. I can only assume it was expensive to make.

Cheers

Maybe this is partly why?

It was also available UK wide on the Red button, but I don't know if those numbers get included?

K

Also, it explains why Taggart's figure was 3.6m. Was it a new episode or a repeat?

It shows how much of the drama is watched by Scottish viewers, and the whole advantage of regional ITV was that, despite the cost, it was able to provide TV with a distinct (regional) purpose that the BBC could not, providing its unique advantage.

And Taggart is a drama that still exists to do that. It would be interesting to see ratings broken down regionally, to see if there are any significant differences.

It's why I feel nostalgia towards Heartbeat, The Royal, Taggart, Doc Martin, Morse, Lewis - shows that are made with location in mind. I know that these programmes are unlikely to be funded/profitworthy again.

The closing down of YTV, despite people seeing it as quite positive & cost saving, is taking away one of Britain's most significant production influences on television broadcasting in drama.

Let's all blame Thatcher.

Well if people want to give up all the multi channel options and go back to 4 tv channels, say so, because ITV is as much a victim of channel proliferation as anything else. You cant pretend that ITV still has an advertising monopoly (which is what allowed it to be so sucessful in the 70's & 80's) when we now have 300+ ad funded channels, the internet, much more radio stations, etc all fighting for basically the same ad revenue.

I don't pretend ITV have the advertising monopoly. I referenced to Margaret Thatcher at the end. It is now very difficult for ITV to bring in profits and at the same time remain a public service broadcaster on constant regulation by Ofcom.

With all the multi-channel options, I think it's important for the govt to protect ITV, as it is the only consistent opponent for the BBC, who are now very stable.

BBC and ITV work like the Two-Party System of Great British Politics. A tradition and something I think many would sorely miss, as it raises standard & trust for both in their programming.

Taggart was a repeat.

Anyone know how Emmerdale and Corrie did?

Not bad for Waterloo Road. I think it will settle in the mid 4 million range now.

Looking at those drama averages are very interesting. Thanks for posting them C14E and sn_22. Above Suspicion seems to have been the best hit out of all the 'Monday night dramas' that have aired over the past six months. Will be interesting to see if any new dramas ITV have in the pipeline (like Whitechapel next week) will be able to beat the average for Above Suspicion.

I see Mistresses is back soon (yay.. my guilty pleasure ) It will be good to see how it does this year in relation to last year's series.

Bit quiet on the ratings thread today, Good results for Grand Designs on Channel 4, the fact it can still pull a healthly audience after nine or ten years on air shows how popular it is, BBC One did okay with Secret Life of Elephants and Waterloo Road did well, BBC Two did good with NEBG and Masterchef, The Bill continues to do well for ITV1 though the Taggart was affected by Scottish football and Five did fine with IRT and the film.

I notice that the England International on Wednesday 11th Feb is starting at 20:30. So we have a strange filler at 20:00.

The schedule is as follows :

19:00 Emmerdale
19:30 Coronation Street
20:00 Britain Does the Funniest Things
20:30 International Football : Spain vs England
23:10 The Late News

Also, ITV have released details of Blue Murder (Series 5), which I expect will take the Trial & Retribution slot at the end of it's run ?

Above suspicion was different to the other dramas because instead of being on each monday for 3 episodes, it started on a sunday and finished the following monday which i think helped as people will not have had to wait long to watch the final part, and also because there was only 2 parts people may have thought it will be an easier watch or something.

I'm particularly looking forward to seeing how Law and Order: London gets on for ITV. I think it is potentially the most important programme they've commissioned all year.

The thing that struck me comparing the BBC One and ITV1 dramas were the length of the series runs. BBC One uses much longer runs (13 for DW/Merlin, 12 for Waking the Dead and Silent Witness, 10 for Lark Rise and 8 for the majority of the rest). In contrast, ITV's biggest drama hits seem to be just two or three parters, or feature length singles. Surely if ITV are looking to save money, commissioning longer series of hit dramas along a more US-style model would be a great way to do it without losing hours on screen. One 13 episode series of Law and Order is surely a cheaper way to produce 13 hour of TV than 4 different three-parters? If Law and Order proves successful, I think we could see ITV moving to this model much more in the future.

Heartbeat is actually filmed for 48 weeks of the year. They film two episodes a month.

The Royal is filmed for 24 weeks of the year. They also film 2 epidodes a month (usually 3 weeks interior and then one week on location).

But didn't things like Echo Beach & Moving Wallpaper with 12 parts and The Palace with 8 parts flop badly? It may save money, but if they don't deliver there doesn't seem to be much of a point. Though it's interesting to see ITV take the risk with L&O:London.

L&O is a known property so the risk is reduced compared to something like Life on Mars or Mistresses and as it's a co-production with NBC Universal, it can sold more easily to other countries compared to a two part drama.

What a strange choice of filler - expect Waterloo Road to get a boost from that.

Yes, I can see Blue Murder taking T&R's Friday slot.

As for last night, I don't think the Scottish football benefitted BBC1 much at all, as Secret Life of Elephants is actually down on last week. WR did well.

I note that WR has been enjoying much bigger timeshifts than in previous years, too, as in previous years, it has only gaines 150k-200k (when Scotland air it at the same time), whereas episode 2 of this series, with got 4.4m in the overnights, got 4.85m, a large boost. Also, the first episode went from 4.6m to 4.69m, with a Scottish opt-out, when traditionally, WR loses about 200k in the officials when Scotland opt out. Last night's episode is also currently number 1 in the iPlayer chart, so I think that WR is getting just as many viewers as last time, but through different means.