Jamie Oliver brings Xmas cheer to Channel 4
A festive gift for Channel 4 in the shape of a double bill of Jamies Family Christmas between 8 and 9 which attracted 3.3m for the first episode and 3.7m for the next, plus another 400k and 500k viewers respectively when they were repeated on the +1 channel an hour later.
That’s double the audience Channel 4 has been getting in the slot in recent months so a pretty tasty morsel to receive from one of channels biggest stars in the week before Christmas.
Holby City did its normal reliable slot-winning job for BBC1 however with a steady 5.3m, a 24% audience share. ITV1’s Coastline Cops was watched by 3.2m at the same time.
BBC1 also came out ahead in the following 9 o’clock slot but with a lowly 3.1m for the 4th part of the drama Paradox, only a 14% share, which is frankly nothing to get excited about.
CSI Miami was in second for Channel 5 with 2.8m, 13%…a very good result for the franchise, its biggest audience in months and 2nd biggest of the year. On ITV the concluding part of Robson Greens Wild Swimming Adventure drew 2.5m, 11%, ITV1’s lowest audience in the slot since Duchess on the Estate back in August.
4 continued its food themed schedule at 9 with Gordon Ramsay’s F Word attracting 2.1m….a little over half the audience he inherited from Jamie Oliver, not that they are competitive i’m sure!
Also worth noting on Channel 4 was the performance of The Paul O’Grady Show which is certainly going out with a bang in its final week, ever…2.7m, 19%, highest share of the year.
In multi-channel the most eye catching result for me last night was on BBC3 where 700k viewers turned up at 10;30 for a special of the long running comedy Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps (does that title fit on the EPG?). Pretty tasty but not enough on its own to dislodge ITV2 from its perch on top of the digital channel Christmas tree with an X Factor compilation of the best and worst of the 2009 season being its most watched individual programme, c500k at 9pm. Strength in depth being again the secret of ITV2’s success.
Liam