TV ratings: BBC1 gets Saturday-night swing
Posted on: September 9, 2008
Eurovision Dance Contest: averaged 4.7 million viewers. Photograph: BBC
Couples swinging on the dancefloor proved more appealing than a monster swinging on the Empire State Building in the primetime clash on Saturday, September 6.
BBC1’s Eurovision Dance Contest, hosted by Graham Norton and Claudia Winkleman, averaged 4.7 million viewers between 8pm and 10.15pm, a 22% share of the audience, according to unofficial overnights.
ITV1’s terrestrial movie premiere King Kong, which stretched to more than three hours between 7.50pm and 11.15pm, had 4.4 million viewers, a 22% share.
The Peter Jackson movie followed another strong performance by ITV1’s The X Factor.
Featuring highlights from the Glasgow auditions, the Simon Cowell talent hunt averaged 9 million viewers, a 43% share at 6.50pm.
The X Factor was up on last week’s audience of 8.2 million, but could not match the highs of the first two episodes of the new series.
ITV1’s durable reality hit opened with 10.2 million viewers on August 16, with another 9.4 million on August 23.
But The X Factor easily had the better of a Weakest Link repeat on BBC1, which could only manage 3.3 million viewers.
A 31-year-old Dad’s Army repeat was BBC2’s most popular show of the night. The Miser’s Hoard averaged 2.3 million viewers, a 10% share at 8pm.
Dad’s Army beat Channel Five’s NCIS repeat, with 1.3 million, and the opening of Channel 4’s Tommy Lee Jones disaster movie Volcano, which averaged 1.2 million between 8pm and 9.55pm. Another 84,000 saw Volcano on Channel 4 +1.
Earlier, the opening ceremony of the Paralympics from Beijing averaged 2.2 million viewers, a 22% share, between 12.50pm and 4.30pm on BBC1. The network’s coverage peaked with 2.7 million viewers at 4pm.
Over on ITV1, an Inspector Morse repeat had 1.1 million viewers between 2.35pm and 4.35pm.
Eurovision 
Leave a comment