Sunday 25th November 2007

BBC1’s flagship period drama Cranford maintained steady ratings this week, attracting a slot-winning 7.9m (28.7%) in the 9-10pm slot, just down from last week’s 8m (29.2%) series opener. Meanwhile Top Gear continues to be one of TV’s hottest properties over on BBC2, with this week’s episode attracting 6.3m (22.9%) in the 8-9pm slot to give an excellent TI™ score of 200 (exactly twice the average for a Factual Entertainment programme in this slot). Top Gear’s performance is even more extraordinary among Adults 16-34, where it posted a slot-winning 44.3% share.





Saturday 24th November 2007

BBC2 picked up the rights to The Company, a three-part Cold War thriller from Ridley and Tony Scott’s production company Scott Free and Sony Pictures Television. It may be a spy drama, but The Company is far removed from the adrenaline-fuelled world of BBC1’s Spooks. The Company, based on a bestselling novel by Robert Littell, is set primarily in Berlin in 1954, a city full of shadows and shadowy characters. It centres on veteran CIA agent Harvey (Alfred Molina) and his new recruits Jack (Chris O’Donnell) and Leo (Alessandro Nivola), with Rory Cochrane playing their KGB counterpart Yevgeny Tsipin. The first episode of The Company averaged 1.1m (5.3%) between 9:40 – 11:15pm. It failed to attract the attention of younger viewers, averaging a 2.8% share among Adults 16-34.





Wednesday 21st November 2007

It was Posh and Beck’s night on the box last night, but not even LA Galaxy’s David Beckham could prevent England being kicked out of Euro 2008, with a disappointing 2-3 loss at Wembley to Croatia. The boys came back from being 0-2 down, to drawing 2-2, before a late goal clinched the win for Croatia. The game kicked off at 20:00 with pre-match coverage from 19:30, and attracted an impressive average of 11.2m (42.8%), with a quarter-hour peak of 12.9m at 21:45. England’s last match airing on the terrestrial platform, against Estonia (13th October 07), pulled in 6m (47.9%).





For a more detailed summary of the week’s television, please visit http://www.attentional.com/blog.php