And getting the viewing figures it deserves too - 6.25m / 28.8%. That's up over 100,000 and a couple of share points on last week's premiere.

Call the Midwife also capitalised on ultra low rating ITV competition, increasing its audience by over 700k week-on-week to score 8.45m (35.5%).

BIB = Benefits in Bold

After a good Saturday night, its a huge ouch for ITV on Sunday.

A few other standouts / noteworthy figures...

Countryfile: 7.95m (36.2%)
Dragons' Den: 1.88m (7.9%)
Let's Play Darts: 1.59m (7.3%)
The Wolverine: 1.63m (9.9%)
Now That's Funny!: 0.88m (4.0%)
Capital One Cup Highlights: 0.78m (3.3%)
Ibiza Weekender: 0.43m (2.0%)
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.LD.: 0.43m (2.0%)
Hawaii Five-0: 0.54m (2.5%)
NCIS: Los Angeles: 0.31m (2.1%)

...and it wasn't just ITV that wasn't remotely competitive last night. Over on multichannel, BBC Four's audience didn't exceed 120,000 all evening. Very very quiet indeed for them.

TOWIE S17 premiere (389k / 2.7%) is the most watched program of 2016 on ITVBe

Play about Churchill and documentary about Rene Magritte,possibly ITV aiming at different market.

It's looking more and more that the Voice will be employed on a Sunday for ITV, even at 5m like currently, it'll provide a decent lead in to any 9pm drama which will probably be worth what they've spent on it. Tought going against the strong BBC One line up, but its better utilised there, especially with Ninja warrior and SNT do pretty well for their Q1 Saturday's this year

DANCC! Hello Dancc!

A shame Channel 5 just had highlights of the Capital One Cup final and not the final itself. That would have done even better.

Glad The Night Manager is doing well, episode 2 was even better. Could end up being better than War & Peace if the quality keeps up.

Also Hawaii Five-0 is a very good performer for Sky 1. I'm a big fan of the show.

Way up on last year!

Hi there! Feeling refreshed and ready to help tell the ratings stories that matter, and hopefully have a bit of a laugh with you guys along the way. I won't be posting as regularly though, but I'll try to make them count.

I haven't missed anything really, apart from obviously Takeaway exceeding all expectations and highlighting the extent to which The Voice is underperforming. Bizarrely, that of course means ITV can only half-heartedly celebrate those overnights. But I still think they are capable of turning it around to some extent, depending on the talent they secure.

Overall it's been a quiet couple of weeks for ratings news, let's hope things pick up in the coming days. ITV2 looking rather different post-9pm from today onwards is one to keep an eye on.

From ITV Media:
Best Walks with a View with Julia Bradbury: 3.807m (18.0%) inc +1

Some Sunday overnights from ITV Media:

Liverpool v Manchester City: 2.667m (15.5%)
Manchester United v Arsenal: 1.587m (15.5%)
Despicable Me 2: 719k (5.5%)
Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway: 651k (3.6%)

including +1

https://www.itvmedia.co.uk/

Wonderful I know someone is going to be really pleased 😀

Sandwiched between 2 episodes of Corrie and no Eastenders. 30minutes of Tom Bradby would even do well. Has filler in that slot ever got less than 3m even with Eastenders opposition?

Data for week ending 21st February 2016 now on BARB website

enjoy!

I think a few things have dipped into the high-2s yes.

Nothing in that slot has, I believe, gone as low as the 2.4m (or was it 2.2m?) Dickensian got when BBC1 wrapped two episodes of EastEnders around it though. Must be even less popular than Tom Bradby!

3.98m consolidated for EP2 of The X-Files - still absolutely huge by C5 standards, let's hope last week's divisive episode doesn't cause a bigger switchoff.

Heroes Reborn at 941,000 isn't too shabby either. Must be one of 5Star's most watched programmes ever, if not #1.

Here we are, some notable officials from w/e 21 February.

Call the Midwife - 9.66m (+2.00m)
Happy Valley - 8.25m (+2.01m)
The Night Manager - 8.25m (+2.11m)
Coronation Street (Mon 1930) - 8.13m (+0.77m)
Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway - 8.11m/8.69m (+1.22m/+1.32m)
Death in Paradise - 8.00m (+1.84m)
EastEnders (Mon) - 7.86m (+0.99m)
Countryfile - 7.19m (+0.25m)
The Great Sport Relief Bake Off - 7.12m (+1.25m)
Emmerdale (Mon) - 7.04m (+0.55m)
The Voice UK - 6.57m (+0.97m)
Shetland - 5.90m (+1.39m)
Gogglebox - 4.98m/5.77m (+1.37m/+1.54m)
Dickensian (Sun) - 4.66m (+0.74m)
The X Files - 3.58m/3.97m (+1.45m/+1.67m)

Roscoe, yep the usual request, do you have some more ITV ratings? And the two other Dickensian ratings? Thanks

Isn't that a slightly bigger timeshift than the launch? Certainly makes the week 2 drop look less heavy anyway. 4 million is massive for C5.

Some Friday overnights:

Mr Selfridge: 2.7m (12.2%)
Gogglebox: 3.4m (15.3%)
The Gadget Show: 0.41m (2.1%)

includes +1

Thanks Mike.

8.69m for Saturday Night Takeaway. Best rating since March 2004.

Only a 22% drop which isn't too significant if it begins to settle down a bit from here.

Sky1's Limitless fared rather less well, despite them playing both episodes back-to-back. 1.3m for the pilot, down to 880k for the second - a 32% drop straight away.

Conclusion: Sky1's viewers were massively unconvinced by Limitless !!!

A very bad Sunday for ITV. Owned by C4 all day

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...ross-whole-day

Slightly surprised to see Takeaway timeshift more than The Voice. The latter didn't add on all that much.

8.69m is massive for Takeaway. That's its highest rating episode since 13th March 2004 (the series 3 launch) and its fourth highest episode ever!

Well done Lewie! Are you going to put then in the other place?

Great rating for Takeaway. And also impressive for The Night Manager to go over 8m and Happy Valley to be over 8m again. Series 1 of Happy Valley didn't reach 8m once.