Dragons' Den incinerates rivals
- Published: 05 August 2008 10:46
- Author: Jon Rogers
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- Last Updated: 05 August 2008 10:55
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BBC2's business reality show Dragons' Den got the better of ITV1 for the third week running in the key 9pm slot last night with 3.4m viewers (14.6%).
The popular hour-long show managed to grow its audience substantially from an initial 2.8m (12.3%) to 3.9m (16.4%) in the final 15 minutes.
The programme easily cleared the channel's slot average for the year so far of 1.8m (7.7%) while last year it averaged 2m (8.5%) and added on half a million viewers from the previous week.
The show also brought in some much needed younger viewers to the channel with a third of its audience aged between 16 and 34. Upmarket viewers were also attracted to the show with 53.6% of the audience falling into the ABC1 demographic.
Since the BBC2 show started its current run on 21 July it has managed to push the commercial network into third place on each occasion.
The final instalment of ITV1's Police, Camera, Action! at 9pm averaged 3.1m (13.1%) with a high of 3.4m (14.8%).
BBC1's New Tricks though left everyone far behind at 9pm with the fifth episode in the drama series securing 8.4m (35.7%) over an hour, the most popular show on TV yesterday. Over its run so far the popular series has yet to fall under the 8 million mark.
Both Channel 4 and Five were left far behind. The finale of Can't Read, Can't Write gained 1.2m (5%) with a further 110,000 watching on C4+1 an hour later. Five's repeat of its two hour Greatest TV Comedy Moments took 943,000 (4.6%).
ITV1's large serving of soaps boosted the channel's performance earlier in peaktime. First up was Emmerdale at 7pm on 6.2m (35.7%) which was followed by the first visit to Coronation Street at 7.30pm on 8.2m (45.4%). The second, at 8.30pm had 8.1m (37.7%).
BBC1's EastEnders at 8pm drew 7.9m (38.2%) for half an hour.
C4's new documentary trilogy The Genius of Charles Darwin got off to a steady start at 8pm with 1.4m (6.6%), outperforming the slot average for this year by 200,000.
It wasn't enough to trouble BBC2 though as University Challenge drew in 2.1m (10.4%) which was followed by Chinese Food Made Easy on 1.9m (8.7%).
Five's Gadget Show came to the end of its nine-part run with 948,000 (4.5%).
All hours shares for Monday 4 August 2008: BBC1 – 23.1%, ITV1 – 19.1%, BBC2 – 7.9%, C4 – 7.2% (C4+1 – 0.6%), Five – 4.6%, multichannel – 37.6%.
Peaktime (6pm to 10.30pm) shares: BBC1 – 27.6%, ITV1 – 23.1%, BBC2 – 9.2%, C4 – 7.6% (C4+1 – 0.4%), Five – 3.6%, multichannel – 28.6%.
