BBC1's ratings nightmare

Jason Deans
guardian.co.uk, Thursday May 31 2001 15.29 BST

BBC1 ran into a new ratings crisis last night, slumping to its lowest peaktime audience share for more than 18 months.

The flagship BBC TV service attracted an average of just 3.5m viewers - 15.7% of the available audience - between 7pm and 10.30pm, against a powerful ITV line-up of Emmerdale, Coronation Street and the British Soap awards.

It is the worst performance since "Black Wednesday" in September 1999, when the channel dropped to an all-time low with 1.9m viewers tuning in to a Keith Allen drama, Jack of Hearts.

And the prime minister, Tony Blair, was the biggest casualty of BBC1's disastrous evening.

The Question Time special featuring Mr Blair was seen by just 2.5m viewers.

ITV's Ask William Hague special, which began 90 minutes later at 10.30pm, fared slightly better with 2.6m viewers.

Other ratings bombs in BBC1's factual-heavy Wednesday night line-up included the long-running science show, Tomorrow's World, and the once powerful audience puller, Animal Hospital, which had 2.8m and 3.4m viewers respectively.

BBC1 was crushed by three hours of soap-related programming on ITV from 7pm.

ITV's British Soap awards, in which the stars of flagship BBC1 show, EastEnders, picked up the best soap prize, was the main reason for ratings freefall.

It attracted 11m viewers and more than 50% of the available audience over two hours from 8pm.

"We note that ITV's audience was clearly helped by the presence of the stars of Britain's top soap, EastEnders, at the Soap awards" a BBC spokesman said.

This inheritance also helped News at Ten to its best audience figures of the election campaign.

The flagship ITV bulletin had 5.9m viewers and a 29% audience share.

Overall, ITV pulled in an average of 10.1m viewers in peaktime - half the audience watching TV between 7pm and 10.30pm.

Related stories
31.05.2001: Big Brother beats BBC news

MediaGuardian.co.uk special report
The BBC