History Beats Hysteria As BBC Two Tops Big Brother

BBC Two scored a surprise victory over rival terrestrial broadcasters last night, as genealogy programme Who Do You Think You Are trumped the competition, including MP George Galloway’s spectacular exit from Channel 4’s Celebrity Big Brother.

The family history show, featuring Stephen Fry tracing his grandfather back to modern-day Slovakia, drew an average adult audience of 5.5 million. Big Brother‘s double eviction of Galloway and basketball giant Dennis Rodman drew 5.3 million in the same period.

The victory is the second of its kind for BBC Two, which beat back competition from Channel 4 with Who Do You Think You Are earlier this month, as TV host Jeremy Paxman traced his roots through the genealogy programme (see Lost Hits Ratings High But Fails To Topple Rivals).

In the 16-34 audience Channel 4 was last night’s undisputed winner, however, notching up an average of 2.1 million viewers – more than double its nearest rival in the 9-10pm time slot.

Elsewhere ITV’s evening film, Johnny English, drew a respectable adult audience of 3.9 million on average, while BBC One’s Baby Be Mine, the first of a two part documentary series following three babies brought to the West for adoption, drew 2.2 million.

Five suffered from tough competition last night, failing to break the one million mark with any of its programmes. The high point of the broadcaster’s evening came with its screening of gangster movie, The Godfather, drawing 964,000 adult viewers on average.

Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk‘s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks, ITV2 and Sky One.

BARB: www.barb.co.uk