Winners All Round As Terrestrial Channels Go To War

A number of errors in this story have now been amended.

A 10pm news bulletin returned to our screens last night, not on ITV, its original home, but on BBC1, kickstarting a ratings war which is expected to be the biggest in history (see News At Ten Slot Sparks Ratings War). Both sides claimed victory after pitting some of their highest rated programmes against each other.

ITV scheduled an hour-long edition of Millionaire against One Foot In The Grave and the new series of The Royale Family. For the first half hour the award-winning gameshow lost out to the BBC, with an average 10.2m viewers tuning in to One Foot In The Grave, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The Royale Family gained its highest audience ever but failed to beat off competition from ITV, with the audience for Millionaire rising again to an average 10.2m across the hour.

The Ten O’Clock News itself attracted an average of 5.9m viewers, a significant improvement on the Nine O’Clock News, and Lorraine Heggessey, the BBC One’s new controller said: “I couldn’t have asked for a better first night.”

ITV was claiming overall victory however with a 38% peaktime share, based on the network’s own definition of peaktime (19:00-22:30), which included an audience of more than 15m tuning into Coronation Street.

BBC: 020 8743 8000 ITV: 020 7843 800