BBC1's Thursday peaktime blues

BBC1's The Invisibles

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BBC1 felt the full force of ITV1's Britain's Got Talent as both Holby Blue and The Invisibles both fell to new lows.

The penultimate outing of the corporation's police drama interested just 2.6m (11.8%) over an hour from 8pm with its audience falling from 3m (14.8%) to 2.3m (9.9%).

Since the second run of the BBC1 drama started on 20 March, its audience has steadily fallen each week from an opening 5.2m (23.4%). The show though is affected by it not being shown in Scotland in that slot.

Holby Blue found itself in the embarrassing position of being comprehensively beaten by BBC2's Springwatch in the same slot which attracted a sizeable 3.6m (16.4%).

BBC1's audience fell even further at 9pm was the fifth episode of The Invisibles interested just 2.5m (10.6%) for an hour.

The programme though did see its audience rise though whilst it was on air from 2.3m (10%) to 2.7m (11.6%).

Last night's episode was half the audience of BBC1's slot average for last year of 5m (22.3%) and considerably down on the channel's performance this year of 4.6m (19.9%).

Between 8pm and 10pm, BBC1 only managed to gain an average audience of 2.5m (11.2%) some way off the channel's performance over this time period so far this year of 4.5m (19.8%).

Both BBC1 shows though did face an uphill struggle as they were flattened by ITV1's ratings juggernaut Britain's Got Talent. The search-for-a-star format, which has consistently gained impressive ratings, averaged 9.7m (41.9%) for 90 minutes from 8.30pm. The show hit the 10.5m (44.5%) mark at 9.30pm.

BBC1 convincingly won the battle of the news programmes at 10pm with The 10 O'Clock News on 4.2m (20.3%) compared to ITV1's News at Ten on 3.5m (17.8%).

BBC2's US drama series Heroes continued to slide in popularity with last night's sixth episode appealing to 2.2m (9.6%) for 45 minutes at 9pm, a fall of 300,000 on the previous week.

Channel 4's Come Dine with Me maintained its steady-as-she-goes approach with a respectable 2.2m (9.9%) over an hour at 8pm, the show though was down by 200,000 on last week. An extra 113,000 watched the same show on C4+1 an hour later.

C4's ensuing Cutting Edge documentary, Gridlock and Road Rage, wasn't on the same level though at 9pm with 1.2m (5.3%) watching for an hour. A further 169,000 watched on C4+1. Last week's Cutting Edge programme, 13 Kids and Wanting More, managed a much more impressive 2.8m (13%) in the same slot.

Five's Build a New Life in the Country: Was it Worth It? at 8pm struggled on 715,000 (3.3%) but Five's audience was boosted at 9pm with House bringing in 1.4m (6.2%).

All hours shares for Thursday 29 May 2008: ITV1 – 22.7%, BBC1 – 19.1%, BBC2 – 8.3%, C4 – 7.8% (C4+1 – 0.6%), Five – 4.3%, multichannel – 37.2%.

Peaktime (6pm to 10.30pm) shares: ITV1 – 29.9%, BBC1 – 19.3%, BBC2 – 9.8%, C4 – 7.3% (C4+1 – 0.5%), Five – 4.1%, multichannel – 29%.