Sitting watching Eggheads a few nights ago I thought to myself how board I had become with the show. Don't get me wrong Ill sit and watch the show every night and have done since it started. I enjoy the questions, the fact that the show gives top quality quizzers tv time and it does throw up the odd great contest but at the end of the day I find it tough going now and often drift off during episodes. I thought to myself, I wonder how well this is doing??? Which lead to do a bit of research into TV viewing figures for quiz shows.
I started with Eggheads and as with all these shows I used the week ending 4th March for the figures. In BBC 2's top 30 shows of that week Eggheads appears 5 times with the highest being a 1.92 million being the 11th most watched show on the channel that week. This saw it behind QI, Dad's Army and Top Gear (4.83 million, easily the highest rated show on the channel). This is very impressive stuff for a show that has been going so long and I must say this surprised me a little. Its scheduled well at tea time which is ideal for quiz shows.
The University Challenge show that week though trounced Eggheads gaining 2.91 million. Obviously in a prime time slot you would expect it to get higher ratings and that 2.91 made UC the third most watched show on the channel, higher than anything on Sky or Five, even only 3 shows on Channel 4 gained higher ratings. Outside of the main two channels then (ITV and BBC1) University Challenge is one of the most watched shows on British Television, good stuff indeed!
Mastermind logged 1.74 for the week scraping in at 24th most watch on the channel with Perfection scoring similar figures. Mastermind I have always thought would do much better ratings wise if it was not on Friday nights prime time slot. 1.74 is by no means a bad figure but still, I think this could get closer to the UC figures if it was in the same slot.
Nevermind, no feature of The Chase in the Top 30 I was glancing at though so not too sure on how that has been performing, Ill look into it but the most surprising rating for me was a mere 1.1 for The Bank Job, Channel 4's big budget show. Obviously not hitting a note with audiences at all and if the figures stay this low this could be the last run.
Other shows of notes....Who Dares Wins? with 5.36 million was clearly ahead of everything else and one of the ten most watched shows of the week, however that has the bonus of being linked to the lottery so is really a false rating in terms of the attraction of the quiz element. Still a good figure though as was the 4.35 million (40% share) that was gained by Celeb Pointless.
Call me boring but I found that rather interesting,
Thanks, that answered my questions without me having to do what you just did!
ReplyDeleteI was wondering what the shelflife for some of these quizzes was likely to be. Mastermind had peak viewing of 20million for the final back in 1980, so times have changed. That was Fred Housego's year, the London cabby and 'working class hero' that The Sun was no doubt giving double page spread to though, which might have helped!
CJ announced on Twitter in December that he is leaving Eggheads, so i guess they will be rolling out another series of 'Are you an egghead' before long. Unless they just appoint someone to fill the 'camp' seat. His tantrums, which are acted, add a bit of entertainment value which would be lacking otherwise. But i also wondered if they might just pull the plug, hence checking the viewing figures. Seems like it's doing well enough to carry on, though i think they will need a fairly colourful personality to replace CJ (not just another deadpan, straight-laced quiz expert).
University challenge had a boost in recent weeks as it's the finals, grand final was last Monday. Not sure what the average viewing for the heats is. Mastermind will probably go up as the series final approaches, too.