Sunday 23rd December 2007
In a public-service bid to keep petrolheads off the roads, BBC2 ran an evening of Top Gear related programming. The themed night started at 7pm with James May: My Sisters’ Top Toys, in which the erstwhile Top Gear presenter examined the appeal of certain toys, and their relationship to society. This was watched by a respectable 3.5m (15.2%) in a slot that put it in direct competition with ITV1’s Emmerdale and Coronation Street. This was followed by an edition of Top Gear at 20:00, which had an audience of 6.8m and a TI™ of 234.3 but, unusually, did not win its slot. This was the last episode of 10, in a series that has averaged just under 7m.

Thursday 20th December 2007
Christmas is not a time enjoyed by everyone as BBC1’s Skint (22:45) helped us remember. Part of the BBC’s Hard Christmas campaign, the programme revisited Vernon Burgess, a Big Issue seller who spent last Christmas in a psychiatric ward, but was determined to play his way out of trouble by busking with his guitar. Appealing to an audience of 2.12m (16.4%), the programme received a TI™ of 114.7.

Tuesday 18th December 2007
BBC1 launched a brand new Dickensian dramatisation last night as Oliver Twist began a five-part run, with episodes shown on consecutive evenings. The cast includes such luminaries as Timothy Spall and Sarah Lancashire, although William Miller steals the show as the young Oliver. This adaptation is penned by EastEnders writer Sarah Phelps, here swapping Phil Mitchell for The Artful Dodger. It continues a BBC1 experiment of putting period drama around a contemporary soap – a strategy that bought the channel some success in 2005 when another Dickens adaptation (Bleak House) averaged 5.8m (25.5%) in Thursday and Friday evening slots around EastEnders. Bleak House ran to 15 episodes, but Phelps has just five episodes to play out the story of Oliver Twist. The opening instalment certainly made the most of a lead-in audience of 9.7m (courtesy of EastEnders), averaging 8m (35%) across the 8-9pm slot to give an above-average TI™ score of 123.

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