Celebrity Wrestling hits the deck
Celebrity Wrestling: only managed to achieve a paltry 14% audience share
ITV1's Saturday night line-up performed badly for the third consecutive week as Celebrity Wrestling slumped to its lowest audience yet.
Despite the show generating acres of publicity, its ratings fell to a new low of
2.6 million viewers in the key early evening slot.
The antics of former Big Brother contestant Kate Lawler and TV presenter Jeff Brazier only managed to achieve a paltry 14% audience share and the knock-on effect plunged ITV1's peak time share below 20%.
Celebrity Wrestling has suffered from the huge popularity of BBC1's Doctor Who, which attracted 7.5 million - four out of ten - viewers from 7pm
Although ITV1 managed to improve on last Saturday night, when none of its five main evening shows had more than an 18% share, only the last 45 minutes of Ultimate Force made any sort of impact on BBC1.
A previously unseen episode from the last series of Ross Kemp's action drama drew 3.9 million viewers and a 20% share, just beating the start of Match of the Day on BBC1.
Highlights of the penultimate weekend of the English Premier League drew 3.4 million viewers to BBC1.
ITV1's evening got off to a lacklustre start when music reality show Hit Me Baby One More Time pulled in just
2.2 million viewers and a 17% share. The BBC1 opposition, Just for Laughs, had
3.4 million and a 27% share.
ITV1's ratings picked up slightly when tennis star Greg Rusedski took part in
Celebrity Stitch Up. The show picked up
3.5 million viewers and a 19% share, helping to lift the audience for Hit Me Baby's 15-minute results show to
3 million viewers.
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? then came to ITV1's rescue, bringing in
an average audience of of 5 million between 8.30pm and 9.30pm. However, the long-running quiz was no match for
BBC1's Casualty.
The hospital soap had
7.8 million viewers and a 36% share, which gave a leg up to the Strictly Dance Fever results show that followed.
The departure of yet another couple from the Graham Norton-fronted dance contest drew
4.8 million viewers and a 22% share.
Elsewhere, Channel 4's decision to devote its peak time schedule to music cut its share by half, compared with the 13.8% it achieved the previous Saturday.
Just more than a million viewers tuned in to Musicality: The Winner's Story, although the ratings picked up for a Kylie Minogue double bill.
Coverage of the star's current tour brought in
2.1 million viewers and was followed by a documentary, Kylie Entirely, with
1.2 million viewers at 11.30pm. This beat all the other terrestrial channels except ITV1.
Channel 4 was left with a peak time share of just 6.7%.
mediaguardian
