Thanks for those breakdowns ronant.

For reference, Midwife ran 20:01-20:59; Musketeers, 21:00-21:59; and Selfridge, 21:00-22:01.

Good to see Midwife build throughout, peaking with 9.92m in both the final 5-minute segments. Selfridge pretty steady when you strip out the adverts. Musketeers almost inevitably saw viewers dribble away slightly following a start boosted by its massive lead-in, but from first to last quarter it was down just -5%, which I believe from rzt's previous posts is pretty good as BBC One drama premieres go.

Not Bad retention. It can go either way from here. There will be people who don't turn up next week But there will be new people who turn up next week from word of mouth, so normally I would say it's looking at 6.7-6.9 next week. However is word of mouth is really strong it may do better.

It has to find it's audience though, people have to find it.

That CTM breakdown is really good.

So that will depress the final 5mins. Not shabby at all.

I'm interested now because we all know the power of word of mouth, remember CTM it absolutely skyrocketed after ep 1. Im not sure where this will go.

Indeed it is, just half a million short of Merlin's debut series, way back in 2008.


No, it finished on time, as far as tape-checking is concerned (22:01).

The post-Christmas scheduling or the loss of the big Strictly lead-in?

That was really a bit of a poor planning from the BBC there. They probably should have dropped an episode from the Atlantis order since it was always relatively obvious it would have to take a break to accommodate the Doctor Who special.

To an extent the loss of the Strictly lead-in should have been cancelled out by the absence of opposition from The X Factor.

What a superb set of ratings for BBC one last night, they couldnt have wished for better. Countryfile well ahead of DOI, CTM getting its best rating ever, and The Musketeers launching extremely strong. When you think that 3 years ago, Itv were dominating Sundays in the first quarter, there's now been a complete 360degree turn. DOI rated poorly as expected, while Mr Selfridge fell to its worst ever rating which must be of real concern as it had been trailed a lot and there are still 9 long weeks to go. BBC One really couldnt have wished for a better January, lots of new and returning shows doing well. Itv on the other hand have had a miserable month, with their 2nd series returning shows like Bletchley, Splash and Selfridge struggling, DOI way down from previous years and no newly originated hits through. BBC one just need to target XF and Downton later this year and they will almost have wiped out the strong Itv territories throughout the year.

Haven't been able to post all weekend, not that anyone knows who I am lol! But I'll give my opinions anyway.

The Voice: I was really impressed with it last week and thought that it had really turned a corner, getting such a great average and astonishing peak. Although it did decently this week, I kind of expected it to do better and was slightly disappointed. Hopefully it goes back up again soon!

Call the Midwife: How amazing is this show and its ratings?? I love the show, and the ratings are always great, but I hope they climb even further and we witness a 10m overnight some day. Although they need to sort out the Xmas special, maybe move it to Xmas eve, because it seems to get relatively lower overnight ratings, which is a shame.

So basically, I am impressed with TV and CTM and hope they climb even further in the ratings, and also EE needs to pick up because it really is improving in quality!!

Perhaps.

I tend to think the loss of both Strictly and The X Factor hurt it more than anything. Those shows tend to drive a lot of traffic to television in general and there wasn't really anything else on the schedule that could do that job.

BOAF is a new hit is it not? Let's discuss Autumn schedules when it gets here. I doubt the BBC will want to harm DA though, it does big business for their BBC America channel.

Downton doesn't air on BBC America. It airs on PBS in the US.

DA airs on PBS.

I said "no newly originated hits", i.e. shows which have not had a past history. BOAF isnt completely newly originated. DA doesnt air on BBC America, it airs on PBS. We've seen how BBC One has turned around Q1 Sundays which was Itv golden ratings territory just 5 years ago with the DOI and Wild at Heart combination. I believe BBC One has the capability to turn around Q4 Sundays from 8-10pm if they put the effort in. Both XF and DA, though still big ratings winners, are not at their peak and could be vulnerable. BBC One just needs to find that one show to take advantage of that 10m+ SCD lead-ins in the Sun 8pm slot, and it will get them scope to claw back the night.

I'll just say I wish your phrasing was closer to this in your original post. Its infinitely more reasonable and agreeable to say that the BBC should be looking to do better on Sunday nights in Q4 rather than asserting that they should be looking to dent the ITV shows.

As simple as that then. It's the second time it's been said today, as if 10m hits are really easy to come up with, and BBC1 are deliberately not being competitive by not airing one against Downton!

Your sentence can just as easily be applied to ITV.

A bit surprised ITV didn't have a 'Goodbye Hayley' programme on at 20:00 to be honest.

Call The Midwife is this generation's Heartbeat. The brilliant thing about it is not only does it get huge ratings but it airs at 8pm. This means that it provides a massive lead-in for another drama at 9pm to give it a boost and also it boosts the preceding program. It is more effective as a halo in the schedule than what a big 9pm drama would be. For a whole decade BBC1 couldnt compete against Heartbeat and whatever drama would follow it [Londons Burning etc]. The same is effectively happening now but a role reversal. Ive read in the newspapers the BBC are trying to lock down the actors for 8 series of CTM but if I were them, I'd lock them down for about 13 series contracts, ideally with more episodes per series if possible.

Have they put this kind of thing on before opposite EastEnders? Doesn't seem like a great idea. Maybe more Tuesday fodder?

Some can tune out of Musketeers but replaced by people tuning in as you say. It is currently number 1 on iPlayer so next week will be interesting.

CTM is a beast. In order to get big big ratings, almost always you need to attract the 65+s. CTM certainly does that! Makes it very hard for competing channels to air old-skewing programs against it.

Is ITV not permitted to have any success now then?

Though arguably commercial channels would prefer to have younger viewers.

I think the timeshifts for all 3 dramas on Sunday will be considerable. ITV will want higher overnights and I've said it before but Wild At Heart was getting better overnights while facing Call The Midwife than Mr Selfridge did last night against The Musketeers.

Does anybody have demos by sex for Midwife, Musketeers and Mr Selfridge on Sunday?

This is the issue with Mr Selfridge and why I don't think the figure is as reasonable as others have understandably said. If it adds 2m on timeshift then so be it but ITV won't be overjoyed with that; they need viewers on the night. I know I said it'd nice to see both channels do well but I'm not sure if Selfridge did well enough all things considered - surely it should have been able to top 5m excluding +1 at the very least?

ITV's evening overall was mediocre at best and I fear the soaps may find themselves churning out additional episodes at this rate. BBC One's night was stunning. The other channels did well around them.