MovieChat Forums > Benedict Cumberbatch Discussion > Ratings

Ratings

posted 8 years ago by MagdaFR
9 replies | jump to latest

The Hollywood Reporter.

The first episode did good. The second has the lower rating of all.

'Sherlock' Hits Ratings Low in U.K.

The BBC's hit show with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman attracted an audience of 6 million on Sunday.

Is Sherlock losing its charm?

The BBC's hit show, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, drew its lowest-ever overnight U.K. ratings, attracting 6 million viewers on BBC One on Sunday night, according to data published Monday by Broadcast magazine.

The previous lowest-rated episode of the drama in Britain had been the second of season one, which drew an average U.K. audience of 6.4 million. However, that episode's 25.6 percent share of the total U.K. TV audience at the time was lower than Sunday's 27.4 percent share.

The ratings for the hit drama always rise sharply in the consolidated ratings for a full week.

The Sunday audience for the second 90-minute episode of season four, titled "The Lying Detective," came in well below the 8.1 million viewers for season-opener "The Six Thatchers" a week earlier. That in turn had been down 1.1 million from the season-three opener in 2014, but only slightly below the audience reached by Victorian-era one-off "The Abominable Bride," which aired Jan. 1, 2016.

With a full week of audience data now in, The Six Thatchers was the most watched program over the festive season across all U.K. channels with 11.3 million viewers, according to consolidated viewing data issued Monday by the BBC. It achieved a consolidated audience share of 37.8 percent.

Last year, Sherlock: The Abominable Bride topped the festive ratings, with 11.6 million viewers.

Sherlock, which in the U.S. airs on PBS, is produced by Hartswood Films. Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss are writing and executive producing the series.

It remains unclear whether the show will return for a fifth season. "We absolutely don't know," Gatiss said after a BBC screening of the first episode of the current season late in 2016. "It's up to all kinds of factors, scheduling and willingness to do it."

He concluded: "We are just not sure."

I don't know if there was some major program competing with Sherlock but it lost almost 26% of its audience. That's one of the problems with a mediocre episode (E4.1)

I forgot to post the link:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sherlock-uk-ratings-hit-low-962543

[–] sgev 8 years ago

I just commented in the other thread: Probably it was affected by the reception of the first episode but yes, it was competing against a returning beloved detective series: Endeavour.

Also the first episode went from 8 to 11M. Some are speculating it's a change of format what we are seeing. We will see. People think this episode will have a huge rising in numbers next week when they announced the consolidated rating (in part helped with the good word of mouth)

[–] MagdaFR 8 years ago

Lets hope because it is a pity.

[–] sgev 8 years ago

Well, it doesn't matter too much if it would end soon, I guess. It's preferable it goes with a bang, tho. so I really hope the last episode is good (the sibling stuff sounds a little crazy to me, tho.) but I don't care too much if the ratings aren't great. It's not like I want it to return soon!

I like the series but I never was a big fan. I remember I playfully "trolling" people here saying I wanted it to end since season 2! Just let BC to do all the movies!

[–] Mllemass 8 years ago

The viewers are down from S1E2 (the previous lowest-rated episode), but the share of the audience is larger. That means that fewer people were watching anything at all on tv Sunday night. As has been mentioned, people know now that they can catch up on shows later online. There were several reviews of TLD that mentioned that anyone who hadn't watched it missed something great, and they should see it before TFP.

[–] Dweo 8 years ago

I've been following UK ratings for a long time, and Sherlock had been defying the normal trend for a long time and I'm not surprised that it finally started to drop in the overnight. I was surprised it was so massive until I realised it was against one of the most popular TV detectives of all time, wich started half an hour earlier.

Between 2010 and 2016 the overnight ratings have dropped drastically, with some shows losing more than half of their overnight viewers to the Iplayer and timeshifting.

It is probably going to have a massive timeshift and up around the normal rating for the show plus a lot of additional Iplayer views.

I am disappointed by the viewing figure because it looks bad, but I will only judge next week after the final ratings are in. Also the fist episode will most likely be the best-watched drama of this year. Like the show has been for the last few seasons

[–] sgev 8 years ago

Boyd Hilton comments about first episode figures:

boydhilton ‏@boydhilton 24h24 hours ago
Last week's ep 1, series 4 of #Sherlock up to a massive 11.3m consolidated from the initial 8.1m overnight. Overnights really are dead.

Michael Price ‏@michael__price 23h23 hours ago
@boydhilton Blimey - there must be steam coming off iPlayer.

boydhilton
‏@boydhilton
@michael__price that figure doesn't even include iPlayer...

boydhilton ‏@boydhilton 23h23 hours ago
@michael__price yes any time-shifted viewing on a TV set within 7 days of broadcast. They have separate figs for iPlayer & similar...

Tim Dean ‏@ThisisTimDean 23h23 hours ago
@boydhilton but when is every other journalist going to realise this??

boydhilton
‏@boydhilton
@ThisisTimDean it's an easy, cheap story to write about overnights so... never!

So we will see next week...

[–] onebluestocking 8 years ago

I wish PBS released their numbers. I think more Americans are watching it than ever. At least, more people mention it than in the past.

Arthur, put the kettle on and dig out those lemon hand wipes.

[–] sgev 8 years ago

The American ratings for the first episode were 3.7. You can compare it with a few other episodes here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sherlock_episodes#cite_note-401Ratings-20

Here is their source:

Sherlock‘s newest mystery: The case of the missing viewers!

Season 4 returned to 3.7 million viewers on PBS Masterpiece on Sunday night, dipping from the third season’s record-setting 4 million viewer premiere two years ago. That slump trend echoes the UK premiere, titled “The Six Thatchers,” which debuted to 8.1 million viewers overseas — down 1.1 million viewers from season 3.

The PBS premiere was up 7 percent, however, from last year’s “The Abominable Bride” special (while the UK telecast was down a bit from the special). Normally the top suspect would be the episode’s timing — as airing on a holiday weekend tends to depress viewership — but season 3’s record-holding premiere likewise aired on New Years’ Day.

Season 4 continues with “The Lying Detective” on Sunday, and concludes with “The Final Problem” on Jan. 15. For more, check out our interview with showrunner Steven Moffat discussing the shocking ending to “The Six Thatchers.”

http://ew.com/tv/2017/01/05/sherlock-ratings-season-4/

So better than the special but not compared to season 3 first episode.

The headline is sensationalist and they forgot to say that the first episode of season 3 was their hypest ever, tho. It was the one in which they "explained" how Sherlock survived the fall.