More Ratings News

Series X continues to smash.

19 October, 2012

Okay, look, we promise we're not going to go on about ratings every Friday for the foreseeable. But you'll forgive us if we have just one more week of Smug Mode, won't you?

Good. Because the final, consolidated ratings for Trojan's broadcast on Dave have now been released by BARB, and they're even better than initially reported. Final figures have now jumped to a whopping 1.98 million viewers for the initial 9pm showing. Consolidated figures take into account viewers who "timeshifted" - i.e. recorded to watch later - the episode on this initial broadcast, and so are the clearest indication of just how many people were watching.

This figure means that, aside from all the programmes it beat in its own slot, that first Red Dwarf showing was overall the third most-watched programme of the week on non-terrestrial channels, beaten only by ITV2's twin titans Celebrity Juice and Xtra Factor (and then only by a hundred and fifty thousand or so viewers). What's more, this viewing figure would have made the episode Channel 4's fourth most-watched programme of the week if shown there, and would even have snuck into BBC2's top ten!

The results get even more impressive when you factor in subsequent broadcasts. While 113,000 people caught the episode an hour later on timeshifted channel Dave Ja Vu (those numbers doubtless hampered by the channel's non-availability on Freeview), a truly remarkable 598,000 tuned in for the 11.40pm repeat on Dave itself. That's actually around 200,000 more than watched any other programme on Dave that week. Add these subsequent transmissions to the total, meanwhile, and it means that overall, Trojan pulled in 2.69m viewers on its first night. That's a total that, incidentally, does actually edge above Celebrity Juice's own original-plus-repeat score. Take that, Keith Lemon.

But enough about episode one. Having premiered in a wave of publicity to startlingly good opening-night figures, the all important question was: would Red Dwarf X continue to hold up? Thankfully... it has. Rather superbly. Overnight ratings for Fathers and Suns on Thursday 11th October came in at 1.1 million. This is a drop of around 300,000 from Trojan's initial overnight figure, it's true - but that's actually a far smaller drop than might have been anticipated after a high-profile launch night, and also holds up well against Channel 4's ratings smash The Plane Crash, which pulled in over three million viewers at the same time.

In short: Red Dwarf is well and truly back, and continuing to kick bottom on a weekly basis.

Red Dwarf X continues on Thursday nights at 9pm on Dave.