It's a 4 million show I think. It got 3.4m last night because it was against EE. Although it got 3.2m against EE at a similar point last year.

For a sitcom it is doing pretty well. It hasn't had the rub of the green in the way Still Open All Hours has. The tiny timeshifts for that show tell you how much it is benefiting from the slot. We saw over Christmas that it isn't a much stronger show than Birds.

In terms of sitcoms, Still Open All Hours is probably the strongest, followed by Birds and Benidorm. No other sitcoms are in the same league as those 3 right now ratings-wise, even with Benidorm well past its best. Mrs Brown only does 2 episodes a year these days so you can't really count that, and whilst that show still does well when it does air, it does seem to be in decline itself.

So that the fans can't complain they are being short changed! Why should they cut the number of episodes so to not damage ITV? What are you complaining about?

Do you have the share for Birds cylon? Thanks. Is 3.21m exc +1 yes?

What was the alternative?? Knock Emmerdale down to 4m at 8pm? EastEnders will be lambasted either way. Yes, there probably will be another Thursday 8:30 episode at the end of February as the Beeb have a Friday Six Nations game. This is nothing compared to the assassination attempts by ITV last year where Flockstars was left to flounder and 50% of EastEnders episodes were clashing with Emmerdale.

Cylon, anymore tape checked numbers for the ITV soaps?

Yes you're right. Birds Of A Feather was 3.21m (14.8%) excluding +1 and 190k (0.9%) on +1.

Jericho was 2.27m (10.6%), with another 270k on +1.

Thank you!

Thought Death In Paradise would have been higher following EastEnders but no. Still at the 6m level.

If you have CBB or 10,000BC, apparently the former beat Jericho according to the Broadcast headline, but cant view the page, can only view the other Broadcast page which isn't out there yet.

H Of De Vil should have a time out when talking about EastEnders. That was the least worse option for ir and avoided a soap clash. He's talking nonsense.

Anyway last night Emmerdale had 6.26m (32.4%) plus 140k (0.7%) on ITV+1 and later 6.22m (29.7%) plus 200k (0.9%) on ITV+1 .

A few from Broadcast:

BBC1:
Death in Paradise- 6m (28.1%)

BBC2:
The Story of China- 1.3m (6.3%)

ITV:
Jericho- 2.5m (11.8%)

Channel 4:
Restoration Man- 1.5m (7.2%)

Channel 5:
Celebrity Big Brother- 2.6m (12.2%)

More 4:
The Good Wife- 341,000 (1.6%)

Sky Arts:
The Nightmare Worlds of HG Wells- 53,000 (0.25%)

The repeats of New Lives in the Wild are doing better at 7pm than Britain's Bloody Crown at 8pm. I guess history programmes aren't clicking with viewers on 5 but at least they're giving it a go.

I hadn't actually been aware of 'the fans' rampaging in horror and fury when major sporting events mean the number of episodes of the continuing dramas drops. So what? It's hardly a big deal, and it's not like people are going to stop watching because there's one less episode of their favourite soap once in a blue moon.

And my comments apply equally to BBC and ITV. The 'extra' episodes almost always rate lower than the regular ones, so how exactly is anyone winning here?

Something else for that memo to Kevin Lygo ...

I reckon that Norton will take viewers away from a few channels tonight, so CBB 2nd show will do quite badly.

On Norton tonight... Zayn Malik, Will Smith, Ryan Reynolds, Toby Jones and Catherine Zeta Jones... so one of the best lineups in ages IMO. Won't be surprised to see a 3.8-4.0m rater.

Edit- I now realised that apparently Zayn has backed out.

And suddenly the line-up is perfect.

Thanks cylon.

EastEnders averaged 6.78m in January. (Down 480k yoy)

EastEnders' second episode rated okay. The one earlier this month also lost 1m+ viewers at a time when more viewers were around. Down because it was out of slot and the BOAF clash but nothing to worry about.

If the BBC were playing ITV's game they would've run EE for one hour and dented Emmerdale. I see no evidence that they are trying to 'kill off BOAF'. It was the least worst clash last night with each programme being of different genres. There's obviously still an overlap but probably less so than with the soaps. Emmerdale would've lost more had EE overlapped it than BOAF did last night. BOAF may have got some viewers who watch it and EE and didn't know EE was on again last night because of the break in episodes.

With all this talk of 'killing off' BOAF you would think it was a monstrous hit and something to be jealous of. Have the BBC persistently targeted it the way ITV have EastEnders with Emmerdale? No.

Expect a ratings update from an old friend soon.

In the meantime CBB did beat Jericho. 2.38m and another 230k on +1. Why Channel 5 brought back 10,000BC is beyond me! 540k on Channel 5 with a negligible 50k on +1.

Surely then ITV would have just responded by moving ED to make it an hour-long at 7pm.

Well that hasn't always happened in the past and the BBC operating on ITV's usual sly level would entail waiting until the eleventh hour.

I believe EastEnders could be doing better more regularly. Moving stories along quicker might help. There are also a few characters that are surplus to requirements, instead of making them interesting two weeks before they leave kill them off in one go Emmerdale style!

I think the pace has picked up over the past month or so and in turn so has the quality. They could have dragged the Whitney/Mick thing from this week out for ages and last year probably would've done but they seem to have learned from that. A fair bit has come to a head this month. The only thing still dragging on is the blasted Bobby storyline.

An old friend? Hassan is back and better from hospital? And thanks for the figures. Ouch at 10000BC

Yes. Something should be along soon I'm hearing.