Ratings Focus: Poirot and Tess
- Published: 18 September 2008 06:58
- Author: Jon Rogers
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- Last Updated: 18 September 2008 06:58
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With the all-important autumn season underway, it was time for the big two terrestrial channels to wheel out high-profile literary adaptations.
Sunday night (14 September) saw a head-on clash between the first episode of BBC1's Tess of the d'Urbervilles and a new Agatha Christie's Poirot on ITV1 at 9pm.
BBC1's Tess won the popularity contest with an average audience of 5.7 million/23.6% share over an hour, 700,000 more than the channel's slot average for the year. ITV1's two-hour whodunnit pulled in 5 million/23.5% over two hours, and it too was up on its slot average of 4.5 million/20.9%.
Both shows drew upmarket viewers. ABC1 viewers made up 53.3% of the entire audience for Tess while the same group accounted for 48.2% of Poirot's.
But neither had much appeal for younger viewers. Viewers in the 16 to 34 age bracket made up just 9.8% of ITV1's audience. Tess didn't fare much better, with 11.8% of its audience in that age range.
The ratings benchmark was set early this year with the first episode of BBC1's Lark Rise to Candleford: which delivered a hefty 6.7 million/24.4% at 7.40pm on 13 January.
