TV Viewing Summary W/E 23/08/98

Like a fine wine that just gets better with age, so too does the 23 year-old episode of Fawlty Towers where Basil tries his best to make sure that nobody mentions the war. Classics lines like: “You started it. No we didn’t. Yes you did, you invaded Poland,” had 7.38 million people laughing for the umpteenth time.

The conclusion of the European Championship athletics produced the most watched sporting event of the week. 7.56 million viewers tuned in to see British athletes winning in 400m relay, javelin and triple jump events. The week long coverage of the championships on BBC1 and 2 helped push both channels’ average hours and minutes above those of ITV and Channel 4 (7 hrs 1 min/3 hrs 14mins and 6 hrs 33 mins/2 hrs 46 mins respectively).

In a week when the decision has been made to scrap News At Ten, the lastest week’s figures show that it is currently lagging behind the BBC’s main evening news programme Nine O’Clock News.

News At Ten & Nine O’Clock News Viewing Figures (in 000s)

Source: BARB

Reviewer: Simon Wright

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