ITV1 beats BBC1 to the ratings altar

Philip Reevell

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Last week's big EastEnders wedding day for Stacey and Bradley had a tense moment when the arrival of the bride had to be delayed as the previous wedding was over-running.

How awful if the other couple had turned out to be Coronation Street's Sarah and Jason, who also tied the knot.  

Fortunately, Coronation Street got its autumn wedding away first - on Wednesday with a one-hour special that achieved an audience of 10.3 million/48% share at 7.30pm.

As this led into the National TV Awards, which had an audience of 6.8 million/31% share, presumably the producers of the Street would feel somewhat ambivalent that the award for best soap went to EastEnders. ITV1 comfortably secured the night with 40% share, against BBC1's 19% - whereas on Thursday BBC1 had 29% and ITV1 20%.

Just as surely as the clocks going back marks the start of winter, so a soap double wedding sets viewers up for the darker nights when TV audiences will grow. In fact, neither wedding show recorded the highest audience of the week - for the Street that was on Monday with 11.3 million/48% share and for EastEnders it was on Monday at 8pm with 9.8 million/41% share.

ITV1 paid EastEnders the compliment of scheduling a one-hour Emmerdale spoiler on Thursday evening so that the wedding episode had 9.3 million/42% share at 7.30pm. (Emmerdale got 6.3 million/30% share at the same time.)

Curious, isn't it, that while ITV goes to some trouble to spoil EastEnders' party, the BBC Wednesday-night schedule gave Sarah and Jason an easy time - the regional slot Inside Out at 7.30pm followed by Watchdog at 8pm with 3.5 million/16% share.

Talking of successful on-screen duos, the BBC's early evening schedule has changed and is now in the hands of a new, friendly yet somewhat ambitious couple - he an avuncular football-bloke, she vivacious - presenting The One Show.

Peter Fincham's biggest programming gamble has been running five nights a week for long enough now for me to be able to make a favourable judgement on its performance. Only one night of the week - Wednesday - has not averaged 20% share in the past eight weeks, which interestingly enough is the only night of the week when there's no EastEnders. 

Tuesday night is the strongest The One Show night during the past eight weeks, with a 22% share average. It is one of two nights - Tuesday and Thursday - when The One Show leads into EastEnders.

However, there's not much evidence of it having any particular impact on the soap and during this period EastEnders has had its best share, 44%, and worst share, 27%, on a Tuesday.

If there's not much evidence of The One Show helping EastEnders, it does seem to help Street Doctor - the 7.30pm Monday show that spun out of the first run of The One Show. It has gradually improved its share to 17%. However, this improvement has to be set against the context of BBC1's Monday night primetime share, which has been drifting away from 26% in early September to below 20% in late October.  

I wonder if there's some more upside for The One Show? Having settled in pretty rapidly at 20% share five days a week, can it push on to 25%? If it does, Emmerdale might need to line up a marriage every month to put the newcomers back in their place.

Philip Reevell can be contacted at philip.reevell@citybroadcasting.co.uk