Who Do You Think You Are? ends on a whimper

BBC1's Who Do You Think You Are?

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BBC1's ratings success Who Do You Think You Are? failed to spark in the last of its current run yesterday at 9pm only interesting 4.9m viewers (21.2% share), the lowest audience for the show on the channel.

Last night's show began with 4.8m (21.3%) and steadily rose to a high of 5.1m (22.2%) in the last 15-minutes. The programme was down by 18% on the channel's slot average for the year so far of 6m (25.5%).

Last week a repeat of New Tricks, in the same slot, gained 5m (21.7%).

The previous seven editions of Who Do You Think You Are? had aired in its regular slot of Wednesdays at 9pm with every episode in that slot comfortably breaking the six million mark. The least watched in the current run, on 3 September, averaged 6.2m (27.1%). The opening edition on 13 August impressed a strong 6.9m (29.9%).

Overall the current fifth series has averaged an impressive 6.3m (27.2%) over the eight outings.

The current run of the genealogy series has proved to be more popular than last year's seven part run which averaged 6.2m (28.5%). Only the second edition, on 13 September last year, dipped below the six million mark with 5.6m (26.2%) watching on a Thursday at 9pm. The penultimate outing of that run drew 6.6m (31.3%) on 11 November.

The previous lowest edition of the show to air on the corporation's main terrestrial channel was on 25 October 2006 when it attracted an average audience of 5.3m (23.3%). The show originally launched on BBC2 in 2005.

Despite the show taking a tumble in the ratings due to its unfamiliar slot BBC1 still had the edge over its commercial rival ITV1.

The commercial network's drama Place of Execution also took a fall, bringing in 4.5m (19.3%) at the same time. Last week the drama launched with 6m (26%).

There wasn't too much separating BBC2 and Channel 4 in the key 9pm slot but BBC2 managed to gain the advantage.

Amazon

The third part of Bruce Parry's Amazon adventure held a steady 2.6m (11%) over the hour, a rise of half a million on the slot average.

Not too far behind was a repeat of The Secret Millionaire on C4 which grabbed 2.3m (9.8%) in the same slot. Another 186,000 watched the show on the timeshifted C4+1.

Five's Monday movie at 9pm, Dude, Where's My Car?, just fell short of the million mark on 992,000 (4.7%).

ITV1's soap Coronation Street put in a strong performance in peaktime with both editions pulling in over 9m viewers. The first visit at 7.30pm gained 9.2m (41.9%) while an hour later 9.2m (38.8%) watched the second episode.

BBC1's EastEnders, at 8pm, secured 8.8m (37.8%) for half an hour.

Sarah Jane Adventures

Outside of peaktime, BBC1's children's drama The Sarah Jane Adventures managed a respectable start to the second series with 656,000 (6.3%) at 4.35pm.

The spin-off from Doctor Who when it first aired as a series on 24 September last year kicked off with an impressive 1.3m (11.7%) but the series then aired in the more viewer-friendly time of 5pm.

All hours shares for Monday 29 September 2008: ITV1 – 21.5%, BBC1 – 21.1%, BBC2 – 7.8%, C4 – 7.2% (C4+1 – 0.5%), Five – 4.7%, multichannel – 37.2%.

Peaktime (6pm to 10.30pm) shares: ITV1 – 25%, BBC1 – 23.4%, BBC2 – 9.3%, C4 – 6.7% (C4+1 – 0.6%), Five – 3.9%, multichannel – 31.1%.