Some US ratings from Variety.

http://www.variety.com/VR1117986322.html

Any news on last night?

Saturday 24th May Overnights
BBC1
06.00- Breakfast: 1.1m (31.4%)
10.00- Saturday Kitchen: 1.3m (21.7%)
12.00- BBC News: 1.2m (19.1%)
12.10- Football Focus: 1.1m (16.6%)
13.00- Golf: PGA: 1.4m (16.4%)
17.30- BBC News: 2.5m (21.2%)
17.45- Regional News: 2.3m (19.0%)
17.50- The Weakest Link: 2.2m (16.2%)
18.50- I'd Do Anything: 5.1m (29.9%)
19.50- The National Lottery Draws 4.6m (25.3%)
20.00- Eurovision Song Contest Final 2008: 7.1m (34.7%)
* peak: 9.3m (49.8%) at 22.45
* Between 20.00- 21.00: 5.2m (25%)
* Between 21.00-22.00: 7.4m (34%)
* Between 22.00-23.00: 8.5m (42%)
* Between 23.00-23.15: 8.6m (50%)
23.15- BBC News: 4.3m (32.3%)

BBC2
18.00- RHS Chelsea Flower Show: 1.4m ( 9.5%)
20.00- Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain: 1.5m ( 7.1%)
21.00- Have I Got a Bit More News for You: 2.2m (10.2%)
21.40- Comedy Map of Britain: 1.7m ( 7.9%)

ITV1
12.00- F1: Monaco Grand Prix Qualifying: 1.7m (23.5%)
16.30- Best Ever Worst Auditions: 1.4m (13.1%)
17.30- London Tonight: 2.1m (17.6%)
17.45- ITV News: 2.7m (21.9%)
18.00- Best Ever You've Been Framed: 3.8m (32.3%)
19.00- All Star Mr And Mrs: 4.5m (25.8%)
20.00- Britain's Got Talent: 7.7m (37.2%) *peak: 8.1m (37.9%)
21.00- Pushing Dasies: 2.2m (10.2%)
22.00- Be Cool: 1.1m (5.6%)
23.00- ITV News and Weather: 1.3m ( 7.4%)

Channel4
16.10- Deal or No Deal: 1.1m (11.9%)
21.00- Mean Girls: 1.3m ( 6.1%)

Five
21.00- CSI: NY: 2.3m (10.5%)
22.00- Law and Order: 1.3m ( 6.7%)
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It was the least watched Eurovision final in 7 years- here are the previous final official ratings:
2008: 7.1m (overnight)
2007: 8.77m
2006: 8.33m
2005: 7.97m
2004: 8.38m
2003: 7.94m
2002: 7.81m
2001: 6.98m
2000: 6.54m
1999: 8.91m

Britain's Got Talent did quite well- a good sign for ITV for the coming week.

I'm surprised Eurovision rated that highly to be honest. And they should be grateful BGT is only a one hour show. How much longer will people tune into Eurovision when the British entry has so little chance of winning?

Quite a poor night all round really then, with Pushing Daisies falling again and Britain's Got Talent down.

By the way, slight typo with the BGT peak. It peaked with 8.2m (38.8%) at 20.30.

There was a lot on this weekend in local places: there were many festivals in towns and the nice weather would be a factor in the early evening low. So I am not surprised BGT is down but the officials should go up somewhat because of what was recorded.

Why was there no Doctor Who? Sorry if this sounds a bit dense, I just haven't followed things. Does anyone know?

They didn't show Doctor Who this weke because of Eurovision. The BBC could have easily shown Doctor WHo at 7pm and I'd Do ANything at 6pm, but instead they prefered to show the Weakest Link!

With Eurovision there must have been lots of people watching at parties and pubs, do BARB factor this is in?

Do people with the boxes enter how many people are watching in their house or does one box count as x amount of people ie 100,000 B1s and so on?

No Barb doesn't count the people who watched at pubs and clubs.

Yes, people with boxes are supposed to enter the number of people watching tv.

The F1 today on ITV over-ran by 25 minutes. Instead of finishing at 15:25 it finished at 15:45, meaning everything following is 25 minutes late.

How is this reflected in the ratings, and what could ITV drop later?

Low figures for Eurovision this year. Didn't it peak at around 10-11 million last year? Looks like people are finally getting sick of its predictability.

Pushing Daisies behind CSI at 9pm. Only BBC One beating CSI in that slot.

Does anyone know if PD is going to a second series? Can't envisage it getting a 9pm slot on ITV1 if it there's a new series.


I wonder why the eurovision figures dropped so much between 1999 and 2000! Maybe it was a hot night in 2000?

Yes, a second series of Pushing Daisies is coming in the autumn.

There was a press report on ITVs concerns over Pushing Daisies a couple of days ago. They think it is a quality series (as indeed it is) but do not see how they can show series two given the way the ratings have crumbled every week to almost a third of its starting point.

This is a series that, sadly, needs to be on another channel where it will gain the appreciative niche audience that it deserves.

Although it would do well for ITV 2 it may be too expensive a purchase for a minority ITV channel. So it could end up on Sky.

Thank you, Jaycee.

Won't they just drop something from the schedule?

Maybe if they hadn't dropped an entire episode out and treated the series with a bit more respect, the viewing figures wouldn't have fallen so low.

Just a thought.

Sunday 25th May Overnights

BBC1
18.45- Seaside Rescue - 4.45m (25.5%)
19.15- I'd Do Anything: 6.3m (30.7%)
19.45- My Family: 3.4m (16.2%)
20.15- Inspector Lynley Mysteries: 4.6m (21.2%)
21.45- BBC News: 3.95m (18.3%)
22.00- The Apprentice: 1.8m (9.4%)

ITV1
11.55- F1: Grand Prix: 3.85m (35.7%)
18.30- Beat The Star: 4.1m (20.7%)
19.45- Coronation Street: 7.4m (35%)
20.15- Heartbeat: 5.5m (25%)
21.15- Ultimate Force: 3.5m (16.5%)

Pretty low ratings all around-strange that Beat The Star increased to get over 4 million despite the earlier time slot. Low for Corrie, but I don't think ITV promoted it at all.

Great share & rating for F1-should boost ITV's all hours up, so at least the peformance won't be as poor as last Sunday!

Ultimate Force maintained which is good I suppose, however it was up against weak competition in the 10pm slot.

HEARTBEAT Can't even perform with a Corrie lead in and 4.6 million on BBC1?

Inspector Lynley looks a little low despite relatively poor competition & I expected a little more for The Apprentice repeat even though people can catch up on iplayer.

In general I think the time slots hurt many shows as the schedule wasn't as 7pm, 8pm, 9pm etc.

I did wonder why they were repeating The Apprentice in such a high profile slot. It usually gets repeated after 11pm on BBC2 on a Saturday. Lazy scheduling by the BBC there

Presumably, because the original showing was up against the footie?

K

All seem relatively low, the only surprise seems to be the F1. The fact that the F1 beat Ultimate Force, and nearly beat Beat The Star IMO ITV shouldn't of let the F1 go. Their loss is BBC's gain. Montreal is in primetime two weeks time; Hamilton's win will spike the ratings further. I'm guessing 7.5/8m for the F1 in Canada.

Right, can someone give a breakdown of the F1 rating, because:

11:55-13:00 - Buildup
13:00-15:05 - Race (note: I'm guessing the rain kept viewers watching)
15:05-15:45 - Post Show

So the average was 3.85m, did any of the race whatsoever break the 5/5.5 million barrier?

No, Andy. The Apprentice got a BBC One repeat because the BBC thought the Champions League Final would cause many people to miss a show they enjoy. In fact, The Apprentice stood up much better than expected on Wednesday night, but some people still missed it, so were probably glad of a higher-profile chance to catch up.

A really good share for the Grand Prix - higher than Corrie's share. ITV are going to miss F1 next year.

I'd say quite steady at the moment. ITV know they made a mistake with Heartbeat, but blame Simon Shaps I say because he was the one who said they needed to cut the series in order to play out Wild at Heart which didn't need to happen.

So, ITV are giving it no promotion because it is just finishing off an old series. Personally, I think if they were going to finish off this series, they should've just waited and called it the next series so they could start afresh.

Solid stuff for Beat the Star, I can see it growing on this well defined audience for a second series on a Saturday night. Ultimate Force kept steady and ITV will be happy that this show has not come at all from this year's budget and still achieving a respectable 3.5m (I know it's not that respectable for Sunday night).

Last night's Heartbeat was episode 14 in a 24-part series. They're interrupting it again after episode 15, firstly for football, then possibly for The Royal. If the Royal gets played ahead of the remaining Heartbeat episodes, it wouldn't be fair to blame Mr Shaps for that, because there will have been plenty of time to reverse that particular decision since his departure.