ITV Claims Best Performance Of The Year

The substantial peaktime audience lead built up by ITV during the BBC’s Olympics coverage *ITV Claims Loyal Viewers was maintained last week (5^th-11^th August) as the BBC returned to a normal schedule.

Initial data shows that ITV’s peaktime share was over 8 points ahead of BBC1 (41.4% compared to 33.2%). ITV had an all-time share of 34.5% against the BBC’s 32.2%.

The figures were boosted by some of ITV’s best performances to date this year. Wednesday’s repeat of Inspector Morse helped ITV attract an overall 51.5% peaktime share that night against BBC1’s 22.4%. During the week Coronation Street averaged 69%, Emmerdale 57% and The Bill 51% shares. The Freddie Starr Show on Thursday attracted a 47% share and 8.6 million viewers – the best in that particular slot this year. This Saturday’s You Bet! turned in its best figures this year with 6.9 million viewers and a 42% share.

Meanwhile, News At Ten (8.1m) captured almost three times as many viewers as the BBC’s new series Defence Of The Realm (2.9m) on Thursday. On the same day, the much heralded new BBC comedy Atletico Partick (4.6m) was beaten substantially by a repeat of Heartbeat, which picked up 8.3 million viewers and Saturday’s A Touch Of Frost repeat (9.1m) out-performed Stephen King’s horror story The Stand (5.9m) on BBC1.

* MediaTel subscribers only

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