Friday 27 February 2009

UK TV Top 20 - w/e 15th February 2009

A rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 15th 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).......................10.24 *
2 Dancing On Ice (ITV1)...........................9.08 *
3 EastEnders (BBC1)...............................8.79 *
4 Whitechapel (ITV1)..............................8.20
5 Wild At Heart (ITV1)............................8.11
6 Harry Hill's TV Burp (ITV1).....................7.87
7 Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (ITV1)......7.74
8 Dancing On Ice: The Story of Bolero (ITV1)......7.68
9 Emmerdale (ITV1)................................7.40 *
10 Football: Spain v England (ITV1)................6.71
11 Rugby: Six Nations (BBC1).......................6.67
12 Antiques Roadshow (BBC1)........................6.40
13 Hustle (BBC1)...................................6.27
14 Casualty (BBC1).................................6.22
15 Lark Rise To Candleford (BBC1)..................6.20
16 National Lottery: In It To Win It (BBC1)........6.13
17 Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC1)................5.86
18 Holby City (BBC1)...............................5.64
19 (The Bill (ITV1).................................5.55
20 (Trial and Retribution (ITV1)....................5.55

Chart commentary: After a few weeks of level-pegging ITV1 manages to just about overhaul BBC1 this week with a tally of 11 shows in the Top 20. But the ailing Network is hardly covering itself in glory; apart from trophy drama 'Whitechapel' (which held its audience rather well across three weeks) much of their output is cheap, tired stuff....its two soaps (with Emmerdale drifting away from the pack), past-their-sell-by-date glorified kid's entertainers Ant and Dec with their flogged-to-death cavalcade of shouting, cheering and clapping, a cheapjack documentary capitalising on the inexplicable success of their Sunday night celebrity skating competition and a bit of football rating highly (as does BBC1's coverage of some rugby match or other...don't ask me which one!) Elsewhere Hustle finishes its fifth run with a figure right up there with its first of the series - no wodner a sixth series has been commissioned for next year. The show's in rude, lively health. BBC1's celebrity geneaology strand 'Who Do You Think You Are?' is still suffering against ITV1's heavyweight Monday night dramas but may regain some ground in a couple of weeks as the new drama 'Law And Order:UK' (watchable but hardly event TV) pulled in a couple of million less than 'Whitechapel' on its first outing.

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