5 years 2 months actually.

7.4m is awful, and must be at least 2m shy of ITV's lowest expectations given the 11m audience last time out and massive audiences for the franchise in the past. It wasn't the best of episodes, so there may have been fairly heavy attrition of viewers over the 2hrs.

Meanwhile, 7.4m for Top Gear is absolutely fantastic and to be up on the past 2 episodes for no apparent reason is great too. The anti-car mafia must be worried, with TG one of the most popular shows on telly and the road charging petition going from strength to strength. They'll be crying into their lentils today, for sure...

Now that it's found some viewers, let's hope they find some jokes next time round!

Does anyone think any new brand new tv show in the future will debut with 8 million viewers or more? I dont think so. Long gone are the days of frequent 10 m+ ratings.

Only international tournament football will get high figures above 15 million.

Ratings for Lewis were poor because it had more competition from Waking The Dead plus Top Gear acted as a huge lead-in to that programme on 9/11 so it dented everything at 9.00pm.

And remember Top Gear's ratings were down last week because it was up against a movie premiere on Channel 4 I think.

I fail to see how 7.4m can be "awful" in one breath and "absolutely fantastic" in another. Both are high budget shows that are very costly to produce.

The 9pm Sunday split by share is roughly as follows:
ITV - 31%
BBC1 - 25%
BBC2 - 14%
Ch 4 - 7%
Ch 5 - 7%
Sky 1 - 7%
The Rest - 10%

Its a tough slot - as is the 8pm & 10pm Sunday slots. Increasingly stations are putting all their best shows against the best shows of other stations so we are left with nights of very weak competition (Friday at the moment) and nights of intense competition (Sunday)

Top Gear is obviously on a high at the moment because of recent events. It's future could come unstuck if there are any further accidents or if they stray too far into the political arena. Campaigning would get it into areas of possible breach of impartiality: its difficult to see how anything with Clarkson on it ever could be Anyway that's more of an issue for future series not this one. In the meantime they are on the crest of the wave.

Well 7.4m is absoloutly fantastic for BBC2, but for one of ITV's biggest dramas it's not so good. I think you've underestimated 'the rest' in those shares - BBC1 had a 20% share between 9 and 10, and Lewis had a 31% share between 9 and 11 - so it would of been much lower between 9 and 10.

How much do they cost per hour? I would estimate that the cost per hour is not much different now that Top Gear have gone down the stunt route. If you look at it this way why should the audience figures be radically different?

Well as far as i'm aware people dont watch a programme because it cost a lot of money.

Top Gear is doing 'absoloutly brilliant' because these are BBC2's biggest ratings for a decade. Lewis didn't do so well because it's on ITV1, follows another big rating show and dropped by 4 million on it's previous episode.

Spending money is necessary to create a good show, usually. If you spend money on big budget stunts, assuming they are done well, they should bring you viewers.

Let not dance around it, Top Gear is doing its best ratings because Richard Hammond nearly died last Autumn. Since then the profile of the show has been raised & has brought a lot of new viewers to the show. Those viewers have discovered they quite like the show.

According to broadcastnow.co.uk

"ITV1's one-off drama The Bad Mother's Handbook gained a respectable 5.7 million (24%) at 9pm last night but still lost out to BBC1's popular Waking the Dead"

Well I hope these cars are waterproof when we have no ice caps left and we are all bobbing about in the sea.

Monday, 19th Feb:-

1:40 BBC1: Neighbours 3.1m (40%)

5:00 CHANNEL 4: Richard & Judy 2.3m (16%)
5:15 BBC2: Weakest Link 3.2m (21%)
5:30 ITV 1: Dale's Supermarket Sweep 1.8m (11%)
5:30 FIVE: Five News 700,000 (4.5%)
5:35 BBC1: Neighbours 2.8m (18%)

6:30 CHANNEL 4: Hollyoaks 2.0m (10%)

7:00 ITV 1: Emmerdale 8.7m (41%)
7:30 ITV 1: Corrie 11.0m (48%)

8:00 BBC1: Enders 9.6m (39%)
8:00 ITV 1: Tonight 4.1m (17%)
8:00 CHANNEL 4: Dispatches 2.1m (8.4%)

8:30 BBC1: Panorama 2.3m (9.3%)
8:30 ITV 1: Corrie 10.5m (42%)

9:00 BBC1: Waking the Dead 6.2m (25%)
9:00 BBC2: Five Ways to Save the World 1.4m (5.8%)
9:00 ITV 1: The Bad Mother's Handbook 5.7m (24%)
9.00 CHANNEL 4: Hypochondriacs: I Told You I Was Ill 1.6m (6.5m)
9:00 FIVE: The Twins who Share a Body 3.1m (12.4%)

As one would expect Corrie dominated last night. The Five documentary at 9:00 was Five's second best ratings for a documentary EVER (only the michael jackson one bettering it).

Anyone got the ratings for Hotel Babylon on Thursday?

5.4 million

Thanks for the Neighbours ratings, rizstar.

TUESDAY Night:

ITV1
7.30- 10pm Champions League 5.0m (peaked at 5.8m at 9pm)
10pm Confessions ... of an Estate Agent 1.7m

BBC1
7.00 Watchdog 5.6m
9.00 Life on Mars 5.7m
10.35 One Life: For the Love of Loos 2.0m

Ch4
6.00 The Simpsons 2.1m
6.30 Hollyoaks 1.7m
8.00 You Are What You Eat: Gillian Moves In 2.2m
9.00 Never Did Me Any Harm 2.3 m
10.00 Shameless 2.9m
11.00 The Sex Inspectors 0.8m

five
9.00 CSI 2.9m
10.00 CSI Miami 2.6m

BBC 2
9.00 Blair: the Inside Story 1.4m

E4: 19:00 H-oaks 600,700, 19:30 The War at Home 112,400, 20:00 Friends 210,800, 20:30 Friends 316,000, 21:00 The OC 226,000, 22:00 Skins 183,700, 23:00 Shameless 668,500

More4: 18:00 Deal or No Deal 196,800, 19:00 Relocation, Relocation 223,400, 20:00 More4 News 29,000, 20:30 The Daily Show with Jon Steward 46,800, 21:00 The Thin Blue Line 17,400, 23:00 First Person 15,000

F4: 18:45 Robert De Niro - A Portrait 18,000, 19:00 The Mighty 76,900, 21:00 The English Patient 122,200
Last edited by GeorgeS : 21-02-2007 at 14:54

Do you have the ratings for Neighbours, GeorgeS?

Is Life on Mars up or down on the previous two episode?

Level....... 5.7 million again. So it won its slot I believe.

Has it got 5.7 million for three consecutive weeks?

If so then that's quite an acheivement in itself to be that consistent.

Three weeks?

It only started last week!

I really don't see the point of this news broadcast. Surely Channel 4 news is enough.

Tonights guess

Emmerdale 8m
Coronation Street 10.1m
The Bill 5.9m
New Street Law 4.8m
Troy 5.3m

Anybody know the ratings for Doctors on Monday ?

Oops my mistake ....I was fortunate enough to get a really good deal on a new TV and a freeview box the other day, and I was accidentally including episode 3 which was on BBC4 after the second 'normal' episode.
It's a new thing to get used to now I suppose. Hopefully I won't spoil programmes for anybody forgetting that I may have seen episodes that they haven't.