| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primetime Share (tonight) | 19.8% | 4.7% | 33.0% | 4.6% | 3.5% |
| Primetime Share (last Thursday) | 20.9% | 6.6% | 19.4% | 6.0% | 9.8% |
| Primetime Share (Thursdays 2010) | 22.3% | 5.9% | 22.2% | 6.4% | 5.4% |
Britain’s first ever televised election debate attracted a huge audience on ITV1 last night, peaking at 10.3 million.
The historic debate, which was contested between the three major political party leaders, averaged 9.4 million (37%) over 90 minutes from 8:30pm. It was the fourth most watched television show of the year so far, based on overnight ratings, only behind the ratings juggernauts of: EastEnders (15.6m), Coronation Street (10.8m) and Doctor Who (10.4m).
It was a bumper night for ITV1 who pulled in its biggest primetime share of the year so far with 33%. Emmerdale (6.5m) and Coronation Street (8.0m) got consistent ratings in the early part of primetime, while ITV News at Ten drew 7.1m – the bulletin’s top rating since at least January 2003.
Two further debates will take place before May’s General Election, with one airing on BBC1 and the other on Sky News.
Due to the tough competition, BBC1’s lineup rated lower than last week. EastEnders was dented by the hour long Emmerdale, down to 5.9m – its lowest rating of the year. From 9pm, Have I Got News For You slipped 22% vs. last week to 4.3m, while Outnumbered fell 15% to 4.6m. Despite the drop, Outnumbered was still above its previous season average of around 4m.
Country House Rescue’s final episode of the season gathered 1.3m for Channel 4, down from its season to date average of 1.5m. How The Other Half Live was flat vs. last week at 1.4m. A new season of You Have Been Watching began at 10pm with 0.8m – down a tick from last year’s season opener.
Five was well down yesterday vs. last week due to no Europa League Football coverage. The channel had 0.8m for Nature Shock at 8pm and 1.0m for Welcome to the Jungle from 9pm.
Multichannel ratings: BBC3's post 10pm lineup continued to perform excellently: an EastEnders repeat got 1.4m, Russell Howard's Good News entertained 870,000 while an hour of Family Guy at 11pm averaged 750,000.
Roundup:
| Channel | Time | Programme | Viewers (million) | Share (%) |
| BBC1 | 13:45 | Doctors | 1.6m | 21% |
| 19:30 | EastEnders | 5.9m | 27% | |
| 20:00 | DIY SOS: The Big Build | 4.4m | 19% | |
| 21:00 | Have I Got News For You | 4.3m | 17% | |
| 21:30 | Outnumbered | 4.6m | 18% | |
| 22:00 | BBC News at Ten | 4.2m | 18% | |
| 22:45 | Question Time | 2.4m | 19% | |
| 23:45 | This Week | 0.9m | 14% | |
| BBC2 | 20:00 | Museum of Life | 1.1m | 5% |
| 21:00 | Welcome to Lagos | 1.2m | 5% | |
| 22:30 | Newsnight | 0.6m | 5% | |
| ITV1 | 19:00 | Emmerdale | 6.5m | 32% |
| 20:00 | Coronation Street | 8.0m | 36% | |
| 20:30 | The First Election Debate | 9.4m | 37% | |
| 22:00 | ITV News at Ten & Weather | 7.1m | 31% | |
| 22:35 | Campaign 2010 with Jonathan Dimbleby | 1.7m | 12% | |
| Channel 4 | 18:30 | Hollyoaks | 1.1m | 6% |
| 20:00 | Country House Rescue | 1.3m | 6% | |
| 21:00 | How The Other Half Live | 1.4m | 5% | |
| 22:00 | You Have Been Watching | 0.8m | 4% | |
| Five | 17:30 | Neighbours | 1.3m | 9% |
| 18:00 | Home & Away | 0.9m | 6% | |
| 20:00 | Nature Shock | 0.8m | 4% | |
| 21:00 | Welcome to the Jungle (repeat) | 1.0m | 4% |
Note: The Election Debate overran by 5 minutes so the figures will be revised once the official ratings are in (in 10 days time).
----
For previous day's ratings, please click here.
Definitions:
Overnight ratings: All the ratings posted above are overnights. These are the number of people who watched a programme live between the scheduled slot times.
Share (of Audience): The average percentage of people using television who are tuned to a specific programme at a specific time.
Primetime Share: The average percentage of people using television who are tuned to a specific channel between 7pm and 11pm.
Great for the election debate
Note: ITV News at Ten was 31%, not 21%.
Great rating though.
Do you have any of the multichannel figures for last night? I'd be interested to know what sort of audience Bones is getting on Sky 1, and Legend of the Seeker on SyFy.
Not 100% sure about the ITV News at Ten rating as it's been reported differently in various sources.
Some saying: 6.0m, others saying 5.8m while others saying 7.1m!
rmvb2- I will update the multichannel ratings as soon as I can.
Low numbers for eastenders im glad Emmerdale beat it though
Bones is getting around 800k on Sky1, and is was one of their tops shows.
On Syfy, Legend of the Seeker is their biggest show with 200k.
http://sites.google.com/site/tvratingsuk/
7.1m is for the actual slot (22:00 to 22:35) as the debate overran.
Unless you have the 5-minute breakdown, it's impossible to know what the other ratings are for.
It has to be said that on the whole the prime time schedules held up surprisingly well against the election debate – Outnumbered in particular did much better than anyone was expecting although it must be said it's premier did much better than anyone was expecting last week as well. Apparently all the fantastic word of mouth for the series is starting to pay-off.
On the subject of the debate itself goes, not surprising I am however much more interested to see how the Sky debate performs as I suspect that will be more reflective of how much interest there really is in these. Its very easy to have it on in the background when its on ITV or the BBC but for the Sky debate people are going to have to go out of their usual channels to watch. However speculation continues that it'll be the most watched multi-channel show ever. I'm still not convinced though partly because as a piece of television the first debate last night was awful. The rules were terrible although a lot of the issues were also down to some truly terrible production work from ITV. I expect a much slicker production from Sky and I'd expect the rules to be relaxed and modified over the coming days as well.
Also interesting to note that 'the debate bump' only seems to have happened for ITV (although I haven't seen numbers for Sky News or BBC News24 or whatever they're calling it now). BBC News at 10 and Question Time were pretty much at their usual levels.
And the quarter hour break downs for the debate
8.30pm: 8.758 million/36%
8.45pm: 9.459 million/37.5%
9pm: 9.896 million/38.6%
9.15pm: 9.593 million/37.3%
9.30pm: 9.324 million/36.4%
9.45pm: 9.261 million/36.4%
That's awesome to hear about the debate! Still can't believe it was the first one in your history… crazy.
I'm from the US, and I surprised at the ratings you guys get “across the pond”. I can't imagine in 2012 when our elections come around.
BTW, what do you think based on population and viewership does 9.4 million in the UK is to the USA?
9.4m is about 15% of the UK population, so that would be equal to about 45m in the USA. This debate wasn't simulcast on other channels, unlike in the US.
Its not all that crazy that this would be the first leaders debate given the relative differences between US and UK politics. If, like the US, we operated under a Presidential system it would be crazy that the main political leaders had never debated one another on television but we don't we operate under a Parliamentary system instead. We elect a local MP who is (usually) part of a political party and then the party that secures the Parliamentary majority elects their leader Prime Minister. Part of the reason these debates have been so difficult to put together in the past is the fear that they just muddy the political waters in the UK and confuse what it is you're actually voting for.
Well I know the system, but you still have your party leaders who are the ones that would become the PM if you have enough for a majority coalition. That's why I'm still surprised that this was the first time it happened, especially because of how animated your parliament is whenever the PM comes to visit. So how was the debate?
The debate itself was largely underwhelming although the LibDems (very much the third tier party) got a lot out of it to the point where there's now a major poll about to be released which impossibly has them winning the election.
Well I know the system, but you still have your party leaders who are the ones that would become the PM if you have enough for a majority coalition. That's why I'm still surprised that this was the first time it happened, especially because of how animated your parliament is whenever the PM comes to visit. So how was the debate?
The debate itself was largely underwhelming although the LibDems (very much the third tier party) got a lot out of it to the point where there's now a major poll about to be released which impossibly has them winning the election.