Unsurprisingly, the BBC’s Olympic coverage has been running (and cycling and rowing and dressage-ing) away with the viewing figures this week, culminating in a high of 17.1m for Mo Farrah’s stunning victory in the 10,000m on Saturday.
In response other channels have all but conceded, relying on a parade of repeats of old favourites and 40 year old Bond films (yes ITV, we’re looking at you) to fill their schedules.
Sunday 29th July saw Channel 5‘s US import Once Upon a Time draw in an audience of 890k (3.5%) whilst over on Sky1, fantasy drama Sinbad achieved its lowest viewing figures of the series so far with (a still respectable) 1.2m for Episode 4.
Even CSI (Channel 5) on Tuesday 31st July seemed to suffer the Olympics effect, losing 200k viewers on the previous week with 1.6m (6.5%).
That said, two new shows did launch this week. Firstly on Wed 1st August, the second series of BBC Two’s Vexed, starring Toby Stephens and Miranda Raison (replacing Series 1’s Lucy Punch), pulled in a decent 1.5m (6.1%) viewers. This is slightly down on the 1.9m audience average of Series 1, but it will be interesting to see how the show performs in the next few weeks when it isn’t up against London 2012.
Thursday 2nd August saw the debut of Lemon La Vida Loca on ITV2, a mockumentary following Leigh Francis’ alter ego Keith Lemon. The show opened with figures of 920k (4.6%) and seemingly failed to draw the same size audience as stablemate Celebrity Juice, which regularly enjoys viewing figures in excess of 1.5m.
With the Olympics continuing into its second week, it’s safe to say that figures will probably continue to be below the norm as schedulers eagerly await the closing ceremony and get ready to launch their autumn schedules upon us.
Watch a clip from Vexed…
What have you enjoyed on TV over the past week? Let us know below…