Reaping the repeats rewards

The EastEnders wedding repeat at 10.30pm on Thursday had 860,000/8% share for BBC3, which might have hoped for more, since the highest EastEnders rating so far this year on BBC has been 1.4 million/9% share back in May.

Still, the soap was the fourth highest digital programme of the week, behind the Arsenal vs United game on Sky Sports 1 at 12pm on Saturday, which had 1.4 million/ 20% share; the second part of BBC4's Fanny Hill at 9pm on Monday with 1 million/5% share - the same as last week, interestingly, and Super Sunday football. 

Immediately before EastEnders on Thursday, Celebrity Scissorhands at 9.30pm had 520,000/3% - other nights of the week had figures in the low 300,000s.

You can't help thinking BBC3 is a bit of a mixed-up channel as on Sunday at 7.30pm it also had Disney's hit High School Musical with 370,000/2% share.

But when all of this is combined with Heroes on Wednesday at 10pm with 860,000/5% share, BBC3 had a 1% weekly share.

That lags behind the resurgent Dave, which had 1.3% share. Marketing aside, in-demand BBC brands populate Dave's schedule and are responsible for its improvement. This is causing some head-scratching - if they are so popular why do some recent BBC2 shows appear on Dave, not the BBC's own digital channels? 

Since I don't know the budget for Fanny Hill or have details of UKTV's programme supply deal with the BBC, it's difficult to do the sums. But it's clear BBC repeats are doing well on Dave. This week's highest rated Dave show was Top Gear with 455,000/2% share on Thursday at 8pm.

Other successful repeats on Dave are more recent. Dragons' Den and Ray Mears are from last year. Dragons' Den had 320,000/2% share for its Thursday 9pm slot on Dave - earlier in the week, the new series had 3 million/13% share at 8pm on Sunday on BBC2.

So far as I can see from my Barb data Dragons' Den has not yet been repeated on BBC3 or BBC4. Go figure.