UK TV Chart - w/e 22nd March 2009

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 22nd March 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) Dancing On Ice (ITV1)...................11.31
2) Coronation Street (ITV1).................9.78 *
3) EastEnders (BBC1)........................8.30 *
4) Lewis (ITV1).............................7.54
5) Emmerdale (ITV1).........................6.88 *
6) Casualty (BBC1)..........................6.67
7) Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway
(ITV1)......6.40
8) Law and Order: UK (ITV1).................6.24
9) Total Wipeout (BBC1).....................6.10
10) Rugby Six Nations (BBC1).................6.08 *
11) Holby City (BBC1)........................5.76
12) National Lottery Draws (BBC1)............5.52
13) Harry Hill's TV Burp (ITV1)..............5.22
14) The Bill (ITV1)..........................5.01 *
15) Waterloo Road (BBC1).....................4.92
16) QI (BBC1)................................4.90
17) (Holloway (ITV1)..........................4.69
17) (The One Show (BBC1)......................4.69 *
19) CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Five)....4.55
20) Rogue Traders (BBC1).....................4.50

Chart commentary: Another week with the soaps deposed from the number one slot - but a shame it's by a woeful celebrity skating competition, which sadly reminds us that the public's fascination for these tacky shows appears to be as strong as ever. The fourth series of ITV's Sunday night detective drama Lewis performs well - better than the overnights of 6.66 would have suggested - but the show's figures are well done on previous years. Will lewis be another victim of ITV's cutbacks or does it add a touch of affordable - and desperately-needed - class to Sunday nights on ITV? It's a dedcent week elsewhere for drama too; Law and Order continues to perform well and a rare and strong performance for BBC1 school stalwart waterloo Road which usually rates just over 4 million, not usually enough to make the Top 20. This week, at just under 5 million, it breaches the Top 20 for the first time in ages and justifies the BBC's recent decision to commission 20 more episodes for next year. Five hits the Top 20 withb a well-received episode of CSI - I don't follow the show but I believe Laurence Fishbourne has just taken over in the lead role which probably accounts for this sudden burst of interest. As expected, the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency is nowehere to be seen this week...its fall from episode one to two was so great it doesn't even figure in the BBC's Top 30 shows. Elsewhere Ant and Dec rally a bit for their final episode of the series but they're still worlds away from the high numbers they generated only a couple of years ago. next week's chart should see Top 20 positions for returning Robin Hood and Primeval, both of which scored similar overnight numbers so it'll be interesting to see which came out on top after timeshift. xpect around 6 million for both series.