Britain's Ancient Tracks with Tony Robinson: 0.94m (4.4%) excluding +1

Most Watched Programmes of 1998

World Cup: Argentina v England (Jun 30) (ITV): 23.78m
World Cup: Romania v England (Jun 22) (ITV): 19.48m
World Cup: Colombia v England (Jun 26) (BBC1): 19.13m
Coronation Street (Nov 16) (ITV): 18.62m
World Cup: Colombia v England (Post match) (Jun 26, 9.50pm) (BBC1): 17.05m
EastEnders (Dec 29) (BBC1): 16.91m
Heartbeat (Feb 22) (ITV): 16.45m
Stars in Their Eyes Celebrity Special (Dec 2) (ITV): 16.34m
World Cup: Argentina v England (Post match) (Jun 30, 10.45pm) (ITV): 16.22m
World Cup Final: Brazil v France (Post match) (Jul 12, 9.50pm) (BBC1): 15.75m
Casualty (Feb 28) (BBC1): 15.74m
World Cup Final: Brazil v France (Jul 12) (BBC1): 15.65m
Men Behaving Badly (Dec 28) (BBC1): 15.19m
Film: Forrest Gump (Premiere) (Jan 1) (BBC1): 15.08m
You've Been Framed! (Dec 13) (ITV): 14.10m
World Cup: Brazil v Netherlands (Jul 7) (ITV): 14.09m
Goodnight Mister Tom (Oct 25) (ITV): 13.81m
World Cup: France v Croatia (Jul 8) (BBC1): 13.68m
Birds of a Feather (Jan 19) (BBC1): 13.30m
Emmerdale (Feb 10) (ITV): 13.28m
National Lottery Draw (Feb 28) (BBC1): 13.20m
The Cruise (Jan 13) (BBC1): 12.86m
World Cup: France v Croatia (Post match) (Jul 8, 9.55pm) (BBC1): 12.85m
London's Burning (Jan 11) (ITV): 12.82m
Diana: the Secrets Behind the Crash (Jun 3) (ITV): 12.79m
News (Dec 25) (BBC1): 12.75m
World Cup: Scotland v Morocco (Jun 23) (BBC1): 12.67m
Airline (Mar 20) (ITV): 12.56m
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Sept 13) (ITV): 12.47m
Inspector Morse (Nov 11) (ITV): 12.39m
The Bill (Jan 30) (ITV): 12.34m
Only Fools and Horses (R) (Jan 2) (BBC1): 12.34m
They Think It's All Over (Dec 25) (BBC1): 12.31m
Dinnerladies (Nov 12) (BBC1): 12.24m
Holidays from Hell (Nov 2) (ITV): 12.18m
World Cup: Argentina v England (Pre match) (Jun 30, 7.30pm) (ITV): 12.13m
Police, Camera, Action! (Jan 20) (ITV): 12.11m
World Cup: Brazil v Scotland (Jun 10, 4.30pm) (BBC1): 12.09m
World Cup: Romania v England (Pre match) (Jun 22, 7.30pm) (ITV): 12.05m
Before They Were Famous III (Dec 25) (BBC1): 11.93m
Coming Home: Part Two (Apr 13) (ITV): 11.87m
Where the Heart Is (Jun 7) (ITV): 11.83m
World Cup: Germany v Croatia (Post match) (Jul 4, 9.50pm) (BBC1): 11.81m
Airport (Nov 28) (BBC1): 11.79m
Harry Enfield's Yule Log Chums (Dec 28) (BBC1): 11.79m
Coming Home: Part One (Apr 12) (ITV) 11.73m
World Cup: Scotland v Morocco (Post match) (Jun 23, 9.45pm) (BBC1): 11.69m
The Vicar of Dibley (Jan 22) (BBC1): 11.61m
March in Windy City (Mar 25) (ITV): 11.58m
Film: Mrs Brown (Premiere) (Dec 27) (BBC1): 11.53m
Men for Sale (Dec 2) (ITV): 11.52m
Nannies from Hell (Jan 14) (ITV): 11.50m
Grafters (Oct 27) (ITV): 11.49m
World Cup: Netherlands v Yugoslavia (Post match) (Jun 29, 9.50pm) (BBC1): 11.47m
World Cup: England v Tunisia (Jun 15, 1.30pm) (BBC1): 11.43m
Taggart (Mar 1) (ITV): 11.41m
Grand National (Apr 4) (BBC1): 11.39m
Midsomer Murders (Mar 22) (ITV): 11.36m
Antiques Roadshow (Dec 6) (BBC1): 11.35m
The Royal Variety Performance (Dec 20) (BBC1): 11.24m
The Kids from Alright on the Night (R) (May 4) (ITV): 11.18m
Changing Rooms Stripped Bare (Dec 5) (BBC1): 11.17m
Real Women (Feb 26) (BBC1): 11.07m
Ground Force (Oct 1) (BBC1): 11.05m
Changing Rooms (Mar 10) (BBC1): 11.00m

continued...

Thanks Ray. Screenshot done. I've not touched a computer since February so may need to relearn how to do a graph!

That they may as well have these shows as they do better than anything else but the big three (SCD, BGT and IAC... oh and possibly SNT) at the weekend? Whilst ailing it's not as though The Next Big Thing in Light Entertainment has been unearthed.


Because Gary Barlow might replace him?

Well, that's not Strictly true.

Cowell left at the end of the 2010 series (it's biggest series ever) and then in 2011, The Next Generation of judges took over and those audition shows rated better than any other set of auditions (even the 2010 ones). So the initial start was overwhelming positive. The 2011 auditions consolidated to 12.51m whilst the 2010 to 12.28m.

It wasn't until Bootcamp when the numbers started to decrease that year - which at the time never really made much sense after such a strong start. The numbers were still huge but were anything from 1.0-2.0m lower than the 2010 series. That's where the rot set in. Although looking back, 2011 was still a huge series but at the time everyone was disappointed with the numbers. If we knew that 5-years on things would be this bad, we'd have all probably praised the 2011 series.

The X Factor Consolidated Ratings for the Auditions since 2008:

2016: 8.90m
2015: 8.79m
2014: 9.90m
2013: 10.54m
2012: 9.89m
2011: 12.51m
2010: 12.28m
2009: 11.32m
2008: 9.87m

Including +1 from 2011 onwards

For all the talk of TXF auditions this year been up on 2015, they were only 0.11m ahead. That is a very small increase. 2012-2014 were more stable with a spike in 2013. Then if you look from 2008-2011 they increased every year.

A show that overnights 9 million is a juggernaut. XF was still a juggernaut in 2014 and people got too bogged down in moaning and exaggerating YOY comparisons to realise it.


Well you could say that about any show. 47 million don't watch Bake Off, that doesn't mean they all hate Paul Hollywood. It's absurd.

Your posts seem very negative... any YOY increase is a good thing.

Sorry but you mentioned the 60 million figure.

I didn't even mention 2014 in my previous post.

XF did okay in 2014 but it only hit 9m on three occasions that year: The Launch (9.5m), Bootcamp 3 (9.0m) and the Final Results (9.4m).

I think this year's numbers are looked at more favourably because of just how unlikely it seemed that the numbers would go up or even match last year - it outperformed expectations. Of course now they've gone below last year again (although there wasn't a Saturday show this week last year so we've got nothing to directly compare it to). I imagine the overall series average this year won't be too far off last year, but it'll be front loaded with stronger auditions and weaker lives.

Also to complete your list:

2007: 8.70m
2006: 8.09m
2005: 8.18m
2004: 6.56m

Well you insinuated when you said "2011 was still a huge series" that no others that followed were. I just corrected you.

How is that negative? Those are the facts. You don't need to reply to every XF related post.

Just for reference: I've watched XF since Day 1 and I wish it was doing better than it is. But it's not. Whatever they do, they can't seem to reverse the declines.

Excellent for Strictly. It can do no wrong at the minute, it would be fair to say.

Challenging night for ITV but I suppose one positive would be Jonathan Ross which seems to be holding up remarkably well despite the ever diminishing lead-ins and the state of ITV's autumn Saturdays generally. On the same night two years ago for instance TXF posted 7.7m followed by 2.6m for Ross, albeit in a slightly later slot. So a negligible decline of 100k, very respectable when you consider the former was -2m down and Meet The Parents -1.1m down on The Chase in the equivalent slot.

But yeah, times are changing and ITV have to think long and hard about how to proceed on Saturdays in the autumn going forwards - for Strictly to be absolutely careering away to the tune of 4 million viewers shouldn't be considered acceptable. Not to take anything away from Strictly in any way shape or form but light entertainment is essentially ITV's specialty, and we know the viewers are still there for the taking. They absolutely must find a credible rival sooner rather than later. Even if it means moving BGT to the back end of the year.

Thanks for completing the list Score.

I don't suppose you have all the overnights from 2004-2007. Those are the years I'm missing.

Well you mentioned 60 million, and you tend to invite this kind of response jumping on peoples posts and pointing out this and that as though you own the thread and are trying to police it. Your dogmatic defence of X Factor at the exclusion of other opinion is quite tiresome.

In 2011 it wasn't so much that the numbers were dropping, it just didn't pick up steam as the series progressed in the same way it had in previous years. The Saturday ratings were very consistent across the run at 10/11m, whereas the year before it increased from 10/11m at auditions to 13m+ in the final weeks. The 2011 series was very poor with changes made that the audience didn't like and a general negative tone. ITV and the producers decided not to do anything about it though and as a result the 2012 series had no hype or excitement going into it at all, which set the tone for the whole series. It was quite flat although the show itself was a bit better than 2011.

2013 felt like a bit of a comeback with a stronger panel and steady ratings, albeit pretty weak talent. They decided to rip it all up though in 2014 and whilst it wasn't a bad series and the ratings were okay, it wasn't an amazing year. They then went and really pulled the train off the tracks last year and look where it got them. This year's series has been much better and ratings-wise the early weeks looked pretty good, but it has fallen off again in the past couple of weeks, partly thanks to poor decisions at judges houses and partly just format fatigue.

I think a lot of the problems have stemmed from the producers acting at the wrong time. They really should have made changes going into the 2012 run but didn't (that series is the one with the largest year on year fall they've ever had) and then decided to tear up the panel in 2014 and the whole show in 2015 even though it wasn't really necessary. I think that's why the numbers are where they are now.

It appears the XFactor could have benefited from the financial crisis of 2008, when money became more scarce and people went out less often.

Ratings rose and when things got better they started falling again.

The difficulty with moving BGT to the Autumn (which I'm sure they'd like to do) is that it's clash with Ant & Dec's jungle commitments, so unless they reformatted it so that most of it was pre-recorded it wouldn't be possible. Even then, two Ant & Dec shows back to back might be a bit much. One other option would be to run BGT at its usual length in September & October, with the live shows in October half term week before A&D go to Australia, but even then they'd have nothing for November/December and another stripped week of entertainment a few weeks before IAC would cause a lot of disruption to the midweek schedule.

Looking at how XF held up okay in the extended clash last week (a better number than last night) it might be worth playing it at 7pm next year (maybe from bootcamp onwards) which would free up space from 9-10pm (and from 8.30pm later on when the shows get shorter) to try something new. XF would be thrashed head to head by Strictly but would do a lot better than anything else they've put against Strictly would and you'd then have space for something new later. Come November they could have a new show running 8.30-9.30pm sandwiched between XF (5m?) and I'm a Celebrity (7/8m) - not a bad spot to launch a new show in. Would they risk it? Not sure.

I wonder if we might see XF cut back to one night in a couple of years if the numbers continue to fall? Whilst Victoria is no Downton we know it's a steady show for them at 9pm and if (and it's a big if) the Sunday soap hour does return they might choose to use that 8pm hour for family drama (like The Durrells) in a few years time, with XF constrained to one night.

Interesting point, and it was iirc stated on these threads and elsewhere at the time. Whatever it was XF absolutely stormed through 2009 (when Strictly stalled) and 2010 and the buzz on DS, wider media and up and down the country was astonishing. The "joke" acts Jedward and Wagner really worked but went when they had to and you would think it could do no wrong. There were reasons perhaps, but it still mystifies me that after 2010 only Louis returned to the panel. Immense anticipation kept a huge audience but gradually they realised it wasn't quite the same fix.

I'm guessing 10m for SCD and 7m for X Factor.

Who's performing on X Factor? Anyone decent this evening?

Okay, point taken. Overall they fell and trend snapped reasonably quickly. Idol used to get talked about on ESPN and that pretty much died when Cowell quit. Maybe coincidence, maybe more. Remove Cowell and I'd expect ratings to take a hit.

Thanks for the list of consolidated ratings. It'll be interesting to compare as the series progresses. 2009 to 1 1 were clearly freak years. 10m is closer to XF's long-term average.

Incidentally, how did SCD replace Will Young in time terms?

I have them Missing a few shares, and against some of the official figures, some overnights are suspect but its all I've managed to find (found them last year). 2004-6 come from Broadcast and archived threads on DS and 2007 comes from the ratings thread archive. My arms ache from typing fast!

2004


2005


2006


2007

Little Mix and someone else.