Tuesday 03rd July 2007

If you had to guess at ranking the performance of the terrestrial channels in the 9pm slot, you would probably toss up between BBC1 and ITV1 for first place, BBC2 and Channel 4 for third, and plump for Five in fifth. Last night you would have been well and truly wrong, as Channel 4 won the slot with Gordon Ramsay’s F Word (4.1m, 18.5%) and Five came a close second with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (3.8m, 17.1%). BBC1 had to settle for a bronze medal with Lenny’s Britain (3.3m, 14.6%), and ITV1 didn’t even get on the podium as it showed a repeat of crime drama Blue Murder (2.6m, 12%).

Saturday 07th July 2007

Excluding news bulletins, BBC1’s entire Saturday line-up consisted of just five programmes as Wimbledon 2007 and Live Earth took over the schedules. The ladies’ final was the highlight of the day’s play at Wimbledon, and BBC1’s live coverage (starting earlier than scheduled at 12pm due to the inclement weather, and going on until 5:20pm) hit a peak audience of 3.9m at 3:30pm to give the channel a straight sets victory over its rivals. The tennis clashed with ITV1’s live coverage of the qualifying session for the F1 British Grand Prix (12:15 – 2:25pm), and 1.7m (20.4%) tuned in to watch Brit Lewis Hamilton snatch pole position in the dying seconds.

Sunday 08th July 2007

Sport was again at the fore on Sunday, starting with ITV1’s live coverage of the British Grand Prix. It has been a while since a British driver won a race on home soil (seven years to be precise), but with Lewis Hamilton starting in pole position things were looking promising. Unfortunately, Hamilton had to settle for the lowest step on the podium as he finished the race in third place, but his antics definitely put ITV1 a few car lengths in front of the competition. The coverage averaged 3.7m (35.8%) between 12:00 – 3:15pm, with a quarter-hour high of 5.1m tuning in for the start of the race at 1pm. This was a big improvement over last year’s event, which averaged 2.2m (29.3%) and peaked at 3.1m.

For more detailed highlights from the week’s television, please go to http://www.attentional.com/bristolmediablog.php