A rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 8th February 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures.
1 Coronation Street (ITV1)..................10.96 *
2 EastEnders (BBC1)..........................9.63 *
3 Whitechapel (ITV1).........................9.26
4 Dancing On Ice (ITV1)......................8.56 *
5 Emmerdale (ITV1)...........................7.86 *
6 National Lottery: In It To Win It (BBC1)...7.81
7 Wild At Heart (ITV1).......................7.69
8 Casualty (BBC1)............................7.36
9 Total Wipeout (BBC1).......................6.80
10 Antiques Roadshow (BBC1)..................6.75
11 Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC1)...........6.44
12 Holby City (BBC1)..........................6.37
13 Harry Hill's TV Burp (ITV1)................6.15
14 Lark Rise To Candleford (BBC1).............6.14
15 Watchdog (BBC1)............................6.06
16 Trial and Retribution (ITV1)...............6.00
17 Hustle (BBC1)..............................5.95
18 The One Show (BBC1)........................5.81 *
19 New You've Been Framed! (ITV1).............5.64
20 The Bill (ITV1)............................5.43
Chart commentary: The week which will do down in history as "snow week" (apparently) saw some huge figures for the Monday night this week, with the Big Two soaps scoring 11 million figures as Britain battened down its hatches against the ravages of a few flurries of snow. Biggest benefactor of the Arctic weather was the first episode of ITV's ultimately-disappointing murder drama 'Whitechapel' which pulled in over 9 million for the first of its three instalments. ITV should bear these figures - and similar good figures for other Monday night dramas recently - as they make plans to scale down their drama production and programme more - wait for it! - reality formats! Yaaay. BBC1's Saturday night hit Total Wipeout continues to build its audience and BBC1's pop geneaology series 'Who Do You Think You Are' returned for its umpteenth series but found its audience eroded by Whitechapel. 'The One Show' continues to impress for BBC1, sneaking in at no. 18 with a good average figure (the Monday night episode logged in just under 7 million!) and a rare entry for earnest consumer show 'Watchdog', also benefitting from a bit of snow. Elsewhere it's business as usual with the current run of dramas holding up well as they come to the end of their runs and the Top Ten remaining pretty much unchanged. Five will be disappointed that their much-hyped return of 'Minder', for which I'd expected a good 6 million viewers for its debut episode and an easy (and first) Top 20 placing, foundered badly with less than 3 million. It's actually a lightweight little show, not bad at all, but its performance will probably nix any second series and prove to be a deadly blow to any future plans Five may have for original drama.
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