Five nights for Eastenders?

Viewers could be seeing a bit more of Mr and Mrs Moon
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

BBC1's midweek audience has slumped so badly that there is speculation it might have to extend EastEnders to five nights.

A series of 'Black Wednesdays' has produced prime-time viewing figures lower than Channel 4's - with only one in seven viewers watching BBC1 at some points.

According to experts, the reason is that Wednesday is the only night lacking an episode of EastEnders, which draws in around 12million viewers.

The trouble began on February 18, when the channel launched a new line-up of what executives called ' charter renewal' programmes - current affairs and natural history shows which it hopes will convince the Government it should be allowed to keep the Royal Charter that lets it collect the licence fee.

The effect was disastrous on ratings and the average for the evening, excluding the 10pm news and the fiveminute lottery programme, was just 2.7million.

At 9pm the new drama Family Business, starring George Cole and Jamie

Foreman, attracted a paltry 2.2million viewers against 4.8million for Channel 4's house-building series Grand Designs.

By 9.30pm the channel was being watched by a tiny 6.6 per cent of viewers.

Even the satellite channel Sky Sports 2, which showed the England-Portugal friendly soccer match, managed to attract 17 per cent.

A similar pattern emerged in succeeding weeks.

This Wednesday a new series of the makeover show DIY SOS boosted ratings by winning 4.9million viewers, but again the overall average for the night struggled to reach 3million, excluding the 10pm news and the lottery show.

Experts said the problem is that on almost any other week night BBC1 prime time can expect to kick off with a 12million-plus audience for EastEnders.

Not only does the soap attract a massive number of viewers, but they often stay for programmes which follow-Pundits suggest that EastEnders five times a week is the only solution to the slump.

Last month, BBC1 controller Lorraine Heggessey ruled out that option, in case it affected the quality of the soap and yesterday a BBC spokesman said there were 'no current plans' for such a change.

But Philip Reevell, ratings analyst for the industry bible Broadcast, said: 'It is called Black Wednesday for a reason and this particular Wednesday demonstrates the scale of BBC1's midweek problem.

'The bigger structural problem for the channel is the lack of an EastEnders episode on Wednesday, which leaves BBC1's schedule more vulnerable than any other night of the week.'

Last night a BBC spokesman said: 'Our strategy for a Wednesday night is centred around specialist factual, current affairs and natural history and we have no plans to change that.

'We offer an alternative to the other channels on that night and we believe in our strategy.'

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in