W8: Official Weekly Ratings Roundup (20 Feb 2023 - 26 Feb 2023)
Official Ratings: 20 Feb 2023 - 26 Feb 2023
Beyond Paradise makes its debut considerably above that of the original series. Gogglebox returns to our screens with a very healthy audience for Channel 4. Saturday Night Takeaway returns with some very solid figures to top Saturday night showings.
DISCLAIMER: All sources used in this post are linked at the bottom. For any further information, most data will be found amidst these sources. Some topical jargon will also be found alongside these sources. The figures mentioned in this article include the usual platform data (those watching on tablets, phones & PC's) and pre-transmission data (those who watched the series or show before its first airing as part of the likes of a boxset) if it is applicable. Any data labelled with a * symbol means that this data is not included, and is just regular TV live viewing & catch-up alone. EXTRA NOTE: There were some discrepancies within the figures at the time of writing, so do be aware than over the coming weeks, some figures may change without my knowledge or updates here. Everything reported are current figures by BARB and select figures by Thinkbox on the 6-8th March.
This time, we have a new show at the top, but I wouldn't say it's too different from its predecessor. Death in Paradise spin-off, Beyond Paradise launched with a very strong audience of 7.57m, putting this opening episode above the last six episodes of the flagship show. The previous top show sat in third place this week with 7.17m watching (up 70k). Splitting up the two shows in paradise was Call The Midwife which managed 7.45m this week, making it the most-watched episode since Christmas 2022. This figure also means it sits above the rest of the 2023 series. The show skipped a week for the BAFTA Film Awards and came back on the 26th with 590k extra viewers - not too bad at all.
The Apprentice hit a series low last week of 6.27m, and this week, the competition series took a slip once again to 6.01m viewers. Despite the further drop (down 260k), the show was still quite easily the most-watched on Thursday 23rd; second place went to Emmerdale which managed 4.13m.
Of course, this week brought about the return of Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway which returned to some pretty solid audiences. The staple Saturday night series brought in 6.37m viewers for ITV1, making it the most-watched show of the day by some distance. This figure is down on 2022's series opener by 1.09m, but is considerably higher than the series finale from last year - that only managing 4.99m. So, all in all, this series is doing pretty well considering it is well above where it left-off. Of course, figures in today's day and age aren't the easiest to predict, and who knows how the show will continue?!
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| Logo for ITV1's 'Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway'. SOURCE: ITVX |
With 'SNT' bringing in some pretty big numbers, Michael McIntyre's The Wheel could only manage 3.42m, slipping from the larger figures that McIntyre's Big Show managed previously. The Wheel was the third most-watched show of Saturday, second being the late-afternoon showing of the Six Nations Rugby with 4.36m watching from 4PM. This 3.4M audience also puts the show well below the 6.14m that tuned in on Christmas Day. Having said that, the actual series launched in October 2022 to 4.15m, meaning the drop series-on-series is actually not that large (down just 730k rather than over 2.5m if we were to compare to Christmas).
ITV1 had a brand new launch; the ninth series of Endeavour hit out screens with a respectable 5.04m viewers, according to BARB. This figure puts the show in sixth place for the week, and doesn't sit too far behind the 5.35m audience that Series 8 opened up with in 2021. With such a strong hold, this may see a rise in viewership year-on-year. The Gold performed well, pulling in 4.93m viewers, once pre-transmission data was included. This is a very mild drop of just 40k on episode 2, and steadies the series at the 4.9m mark after a rather steep drop from its opening audience of over 6m. Better slipped, however, pulling in 3.75m this week, showing a 20% decrease in audience from the premiere. Perhaps it'll follow the trend The Gold has done, and now steady at the 3.7m mark?
Another show that debuted last week, Starstruck, also saw a drop for its second instalment. The Stars in Their Eyes-like series entertained 2.90m of us this week, slipping just under 300k. Hopefully it can maintain its figures now, since any further drops may be concerning for a Primetime Saturday show.
Moving on to Channel 4 offerings, Gogglebox made its much-anticipated return to TV, reeling in a trusty audience of 4.44m and therefore proving that some shows can return higher than they left with. The previous serious launched with just 3.7m, and achieved highs of 4.7m throughout its series. This pretty much confirms that the show is still going strong, and is actually sitting comfortably above the averages achieved last series. Another surprise hit comes from The Piano, which this week saw a very nice rise for episode 2 to reach a new high of 3.04m viewers, official figures show. This made it the 39th most-watched show of the week across all channels, and top for the day on Channel 4 (fifth across all channels).
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| Promotional Photo for Channel 4's 'The Piano'. SOURCE: Radio Times | Love Productions |
The Great Pottery Throwdown was pushed to third place this week, with 2.68m* viewers according to data supplied by Thinkbox. Katie Price's Mucky Mansion returned for a second series, giving 830k* of us an insight into Price's DIY ways of getting her mansion back into a loving home. It was Channel 4's second most-watched show of Tuesday 21st, despite returning lower than the last series.
Channel 5 aired Desperate Measures across four days, and all four episodes performed quite well. The best figure came from the opener, of course, which entertained 1.58m* of us, before engagement slipped episode-by-episode to a final, and series low, of 1.16m*. A figure like this marks a rather high 27% loss overall. With series like The Catch achieving better figures with weekly episodes, could that have been a better choice for this series? Top for the week was Police: Suspect No.1 which had 1.81m* of us enthralled. Dinosaur with Stephen Fry continued its decline, this week pulling in 700k*, marking another 190k loss from last week. If this trend continues, the show will likely slip out of the channel's top 20.
With that, brings another week of fascinating data to a close. With the dramas perhaps finding their full audience now, everything seems quite steady. Ant & Dec seem to remain a hit for ITV1, and Gogglebox is back on the best form! Will it falter for either show, or will this dedication remain throughout their run? Time will tell. Next week, we'll have official data for the likes of Unforgotten's latest series, and Sex Actually With Alice Levine. What're you interested in seeing?
As always, feel free to get in touch with any comments, requests, or if you just want to chat! You can contact me on Instagram (@ratings_uk), Twitter (@Ratings_UK), by commenting below, or email (ratingsuk@outlook.com).
Thank you for reading!
TOPICAL JARGON:
Overnight Figure: This is those who watched live or on the same day before 2AM.
Audience Share: This is the percent of the overall audience a given show had at the time of airing. Sometimes, it may say commercial share which is the share it had across channels with advertisements only.
VOSDAL: This stands for 'Viewing On Same Day As Live' which makes up part of the overnight figure, but it is those who did not watch the programme live yet did watch within the same day or before 2AM.
Platform Data: This is those who caught up on alternative screens such as PC's, phones or tablets. This data is used for most shows in this report, unless highlighted with a * symbol.
Pre-Transmission Data: This figure is usually assigned to shows that drop a boxset before the initial airing of the episode in question, so will already have an audience before the first live airing of a given show. Few shows qualify for this data, however, but was available for figures applicable shows in this post unless labelled with a * symbol.
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