Sunday 04th May 2008
Kevin McCloud puts himself in the firing line this week in Talkback’s Grand Designs Live, by taking on a live challenge to build an eco-friendly home in six days. This is an interesting departure for Grand Designs, and the launch programme, at 8.05pm on C4, attracted an audience of 1.9m (7.9%). While this does not approach the heights of some of the Grand Designs ratings, (the previous series, which started in January 2008, averaged over 4m viewers), it was a solid performance up against Raiders of the Lost Ark on BBC1, (5.2m, 22%), and ITV1’s drama offering at the same time.

Wednesday 30th April 2008
The anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is nearly upon us, and ITV1 marked the occasion with a two-hour documentary, featuring an interview with Kate and Gerry McCann, who talked about the night their daughter went missing. There is still a certain fascination with the details of the McCann case, as the programme averaged 3.5m (14.4%), with a TI™ of 107.6, across a lengthy two-hour slot. This compares well with the Channel 4 Dispatches programme, Searching for Madeleine, which went out in October 2007 and was watched by 3.3m (14.6%).

Monday 28th April 2008
BBC1 launched a new soap at 2.15pm: Out of the Blue, a BBC commission from Australia’s Southern Star that focusses on thirty-something friends in the beach resort of Manly. The series opened with a murder at a school reunion, and then followed the effects as they rippled through the group. The double episode attracted an audience of 1.16m (17.6%), enough to win two-thirds of its slot, and beating fellow Aussie soap Home and Away on Five, also at 2.15pm.

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