ITV Does Well Without Soaps On Sunday
ITV1’s Saturday night line-up was not good enough to beat BBC One in the ratings battle at the weekend, however, the commercial broadcaster fared a lot better on Sunday evening, even though it has now dropped its soaps from the weekend schedule.
The Saturday tea-time sci-fi show Primeval, on ITV1 at 7pm, managed to pick up a peak of 4.6 million adult viewers (a 23% share of the audience).
However, this was less than The One And Only, the BBC’s tribute act singing competition, and The National Lottery, which had peak audiences of 5.4 million and 8.2 million adults respectively.
At 8pm, ITV1 screened the first of a new game show, Duel, hosted by Nick Hancock.
Duel sees two contestants given ten chips each, and they have to reply at the same time to the same multiple choice questions – if they get the question wrong they are eliminated.
A peak of 3.2 million adults (a 14.9% share) tuned in to watch the action, with an average of 2.7 million sticking with it throughout its hour long running time.
This was followed at 9pm by Thank God You’re Here, the comedy show featuring famous faces improvising scenes under the watchful eye of Paul Merton. It managed to grab a peak of 2.6 million adults (a 12.7% share).
Meanwhile, over on BBC One at 8.30pm was Casualty, which turned out to be the second most watched show of the evening, with a peak audience of 7.7 million adults (a 35.9% share).
Sunday saw a marked improvement in ITV1’s fortunes, with Dancing On Ice getting a peak audience of 9.1 million adult viewers (39.72%) for its first instalment of the evening, which started at 6pm and had a running time of two hours.
The return of wildlife drama Wild At Heart was also a big hit with viewers. A peak of 7.4 million adults (a 30.8% share) tuned in to catch some jungle action, while at 9.30pm, Stephen Fry comedy drama The Kingdom had a peak of 5.6 million adults (a 24.9% share).
Over on BBC One, the big hitters were period drama Lark Rise To Candleford, featuring more babes in bonnets, and dark detective show Messiah 5, starring the blonde guy from Hustle.
The shows had peak audiences of 6.7 million and 5.4 million adults respectively.
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.
ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk Channel 4: 020 7396 4444 www.channel4.com