TV Viewing Summary We 10/11/96

Coronation Street has maintained its place at top of the ratings for the week ending 10/11/96, with Monday’s episode achieving 17.39 million viewers, helped along by the re-introduction of Tracey Barlow bringing fresh problems on her return to Weatherfield from London.

As the soap war continues into the winter, Eastenders is hot on the tail of its main rival, with Thursday’s and Monday’s episodes taking second and third place in the ratings and achieving 16.48 and 16.36 million viewers respectively. Story lines look promising in both camps, particularly in Eastenders, which is now confronting the issue of teenage mental illness, with the recent plight of Joe Wicks, and looks certain to hot up over the next few weeks.

Overall the top 30 places are divided relatively evenly with the BBC taking 14, and ITV 16 out of the 30. The final episode of Absolutely Fabulous ‘The Last Shout’, screened over two nights, achieved high ratings on both evenings (10.31 million on Wednesday and 12.02 on Thursday). The BBC was helped by further ‘one offs’ during the week with The Royal Variety Performance achieving 12.94 million viewers, and the national lottery’s roll over week pushing its viewing up to 12.49 million compared to its previous week’s typical rating of 11.34 million. Although in the short term this is all good news for the BBC, ITV remains confident in the long term and with its established ‘big hitters’ hopes to increase the pressure on the BBC.

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