Well Tonight with Trevor McD is the most popular current affairs programme on TV.

TV audiences are doing quite well for the time of the year.

Just goes to show. It is no excuse blaming the weather...... hot or cold..... for bad ratings.

Good news for Simon Cowell then - his new show has proved to be almost as popular as Strictly Come Dancing, so that will have cheered him up...

Quite astonishing that a show that pulled a meagre 4m viewers on its debut can pull 11m for its final a week later.

But this is exactly what ITV did with Millionaire, which didn't set the world alight when it premiered, but by being on nightly for 2 weeks, it ended its first run with 15m viewers. And next time it came back, it peaked at 19m.

Then ITV got greedy and ran it 3 times a week for 6 months, the viewers got bored and it now pulls 4m on Saturday teatimes.

I wonder if ITV will now rush it back on screen? Even if they wait till 2008, I can't see them keeping it back till June somehow. Or restricting it to 90 mins a night for 9 days...

Will be interesting to see if Paul Pott (I can't believe his parents called him that!) has sunk into obscurity though by the time of the Royal Variety. He'll be forgotten about by the time Big Brother finishes, so I wonder if the old dears tuning in for the Royal Variety in December will have anything more than the vaguest idea who he was.

(By the way, was BGT any good? I didn't actually catch any of it... )

If they get it right, BBC1's ratings share should go UP when Neighbours finishes.

They should drop it as usual when Wimbledon starts, and then not bother bringing it back when it finishes. And see if anyone notices...

The 5.5m overnight for Talk to Me is highly suspect then, as that will be for the 9pm-10pm slot, thus including the reported 13m absolute peak for BGT. A Picture of Britain should have beaten it again then.

Ditto for Tiswas on Saturday, if BGT really did stay on air till 9.25pm

But that would mean that BGT is more popular than SCD and you would have to ammend your previous post

They'll bring it back as a summer show. Because it is the only show ITV1 has shown that has demolished Big Brother in the ratings. And the summer months are always a hard sell for itv.

Fabulous ratings for BGT, and may I add for the F1 too. It was sort of falling over the past few years but ITV are in debt to Lewis-mania !

It's Euro2008 though in June next year.

The Brazillian, US and Canadian GPs always get the best ratings because they show in the usual Emmerdale and Coro St slots. And millions tune in and wait for their daily fix of soap.

Fair do's though, I'm an F1 fan and it's great to see it doing well again with the viewers. Still wish it was on the BBC though...

More of a reason to pair the footy withy BGT to create a summer of ratings gold for ITV1.

Wowee! ITV 1 got over double the Peak Time share than BBC 1 got : in fact it was more than BBC1, BBC 2 and Channel 4 all put together last night
Just really shows they have the potential and lets hope under Grade's influence we see even more of this to come over the years - although i am glad to see they are not overusing BGT and repeating it too soon (not till next year anyway)

I didn't think Talk to Me would be a huge hit and t got exactly as predicted 5.5m, simply cos its just not Family viewing like BGT is and it was a continuation from another episode .... again that does not help... although on saying still beat BBC 1 in this slot too although only just

It was good actually. That's why it attracted a peak of 13.5 million viewers. Which is amusing actually, since a couple of people were quite confidently predicting that ratings would fall a week ago.

Of course it will be back next year but I wouldn't predict any sort of overexposure. Simon Cowell only has so many days in the year and he already has The X Factor (which is contracted for at least two more series) as well as American Idol.

I predicted it would fail and I was wrong. BBC ONE now need to try to counterract Grade at ITV1. ITV1 seem to have new programmes, innovation and momentum on their side and the BBC could end up being left behind at this crucial stage just before digital switchover.

according to broadcast at 9pm:

ITV1 The Time of Your Life 6.7m 29.3%
BBC1 New Tricks 5.8 million 26%
BBC2 Peter and Dan Snow's 20th Century Battlefields 1.9 million 9%
Channel 4 The Dangerous School for Boys 1.2 million 5%
Five Beat It 700,000 3%

Channel 4 continues to suffer re Big Brother audience fall off even after BGT finishes:

Monday Night Actuals:
6:00 The Simpsons 1.8M
6:30 Hollyoaks 1.8M

8:00 Dispatches: Drinking Yourself to Death 1.3M
9:00 Cutting Edge: The Dangerous School for B 1.2M
10:00 Big Brother 3.3M
11:00 ER 941,200

E4
19:00 H-oaks 504,400,
19:30 Big Brother's Little Brother 360,200,
20:00 Friends 260,600,
20:30 Friends 363,300,
21:00 Big Brother: On the Couch 288,600,
22:00 Shameless 176,600,
23:00 Big Brother Live 254,500

From Broadcast:

ITV1's drama has the time of its life
Jon Rogers
11:00am
ITV1's new drama series The Time of Your Life was the most popular programme at 9pm last night with a strong 6.7m (29.3%) over an hour.

The 60-minute drama, starring Genevieve O'Reilly as a woman who awakes from being in a coma for 18 years, held a largely steady audience and was up significantly on the channel's slot average for the year so far of 5.1m (21.8%).

It even managed to eclipse BBC1's repeat of New Tricks which clocked a respectable 5.8m (25.4%). Last night's show peaked with 6m (26%) at 9.30pm.

Struggling at 9pm was Five's new series Beat It. The hour-long programme could only draw 727,000 (3.1%). The show was almost down by half on the channel's slot average for the year so far of 1.4m (6%).

Channel 4's Cutting Edge documentary The Dangerous School for Boys didn't make much of an impression either with viewers, with just 1.2m (5.2%) in the same slot. BBC2's 20th Century Battlefields had 1.9m (8.4%).

Has BBC2 got news for ITV1

For the second week running ITV1 found itself in the embarrassing position of losing out to a repeat of Have I got News for You at 10pm.

The BBC2 news quiz, which featured Julian Clary as guest host, pulled in 2m (9.8%) in a 30-minute slot. It was ahead of the commercial network by 400,000 viewers as 24 Hours with… Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen could only draw 1.6m (7.7%).

The ITV1 show was also outperformed by C4 and BBC1. The latest update of Big Brother at 10pm gained C4 an average audience of 3.3m (18.7%) over 65-minutes while BBC1's 10pm news had 5.5m (27.5%). Five's film Out of Reach wasn't too far behind on 1.3m (9%).

Teatime fight is back on

After a lull in the teatime hostilities the 5pm scrap is back on again with the launch of ITV1's new series Golden Balls.

The game show hosted by Jasper Carrott managed to just gain the edge over C4's Richard & Judy. ITV1 took an average audience of 1.54m (12.9%) over the hour with a peak of 1.8m (12.9%) in the final 15-minutes. Richard & Judy took 1.48m (12.4%) in the same slot, largely holding a steady audience throughout.

Neither ITV1 nor C4 could eclipse BBC1 or BBC2. Over the 60-minute period BBC2 averaged 1.9m (15.8%) while BBC1 had 1.7m (14.5%).

All hours shares for Monday 18 June 2007: BBC1 – 23.1%, ITV1 22.6%, C4 – 9%, BBC2 – 7.5%, Five – 5.1%, multichannel – 32.8%.

Peaktime (6pm to 10.30pm) shares: ITV1 – 29%, BBC1 – 25.3%, C4 – 7.8%, BBC2 – 7.6%, Five – 4.1%, multichannel – 26.2%.

Last Night's Soaps

Coronation Street 7:30 9.7m 43%
Eastenders 8:00 8.9m 42%

Emmerdale~7.3m~40%

For the second week running ITV1 found itself in the embarrassing position of losing out to a repeat of Have I got News for You at 10pm.

The BBC2 news quiz, which featured Julian Clary as guest host, pulled in 2m (9.8%) in a 30-minute slot. It was ahead of the commercial network by 400,000 viewers as 24 Hours with… Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen could only draw 1.6m (7.7%).

=============================

Obviously "24 hours with" is not appealing to very many people. No surprise really as this has been very uncomfortable to watch.

Despite the complaints EastEnders did well, drawing almost 9 million viewers for this time of the year. Obviously it is still being eclipsed by Coronation Street but their audience shares are virtually dead even.

I am glad Time of Your Life did well - it sounds like the kind of drama ITV1 should be making and getting almost 7 million viewers is very encouraging - I Sky+ed it but haven't seen it yet. It's a bit lazy of BBC ONE just to be showing repeats of New Tricks even if they do get a very respectable 5.8 million viewers.

BGT was/is a huge hit on youtube as well.
Over the week the show had 28 of the top 100 viewed vids.
With 5 in the top twenty.

Yes Eastenders did brilliantly for the time of the year.
Corrie did great too despite having good ratings anyway.
Hopefully Tonight's rainy weather will make this week even higher. Tonight's will surely beat Emmerdale who have 2 episodes joined into an hour. Eastenders will be more exciting by far. New Tricks' Repeats do well for the BBC. Having less than a million behind ITV1 is great considering they had a new drama and New Tricks was a repeat.

You can hardly expect people to watch when the biggest guest they can muster is Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, and it was only their second show

What with tonight's weather I predict more high audiences, even though there isn't really anything on worth watching. My predictions:

EastEnders (7.30pm, BBC ONE) ~ 8.6 million viewers; 42% audience share

Tycoon (9.00pm, ITV1) ~ 4.7 million viewers; 19% audience share