Back to Earth Ratings

[JamesTC]

I’ve compiled all of the ratings for Back to Earth and the whole weekend that I could find (really to see how well it done in comparison to the new series when it arrives) and I thought people might find it of interest.
The consolidated figures (the finals which include 7 days of DVR) are from BARB. All other figures are from various articles that I could find.

Topic

[pfm]

That first figure is still so thrilling!

I really hope those that were disheartened by BtE don’t let that stop them from considering series X. We already know, spoiled or not, that X is going to be a big improvement on BtE. And, let’s face it, we’d be there regardless! It’s those ‘casual’ million that went awol between ep 1 & 2 of BtE who need to be drawn back in. ;)

[ori-STUDFARM]

Hope you didn’t spend too long gathering all that together….I thought they looked familiar and so checked….and yeah. I’d seen them before just here

>>> http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/forum/messages.cfm?threadid=FA3A0877-B5EA-ED6C-51EC588F3E016113&page=8 <<<<

EDIT……..I JUST CHECKED AGAIN AND NOTICED THEY WERE YOUR POSTINGS THEN TOO. IGNORE ME

[ori-STUDFARM]

EDIT……..I JUST CHECKED AGAIN AND NOTICED THEY WERE YOUR POSTINGS THEN TOO. IGNORE ME

[JamesTC]

Yes, the above table is much more detailed than the one I posted there.

I’m taking a look through the BARB at the moment and finding a lot of Red Dwarf repeats in the weeks before VIII aired. Does anybody know if these were Series VII repeats?

[Carlito]

Were they not the Remastered episodes? I seem to recall them getting an airing? Could be totally wrong, of course…

[JamesTC]

You may be right, they only aired 6 episodes in a row (one on Wednesday followed by 5 on the Mondays in the lead up to VIII) so it could have been a remastered series.

[Carlito]

Can’t be VII then unless they dropped two episodes

[Alex]

It may well have been remastered, it was around that time as far as i can recall. I remember seeing at least the first one they showed as I remember vividly the introduction to it.

[Stabbim the Skutter]

I feel bad that I can’t remember off the top of my head, but were Gunmen, Quarantine and Tikka the only classic episodes shown on those three nights? I swear there were more. Back to Reality seems a given.

[JamesTC]

More classic episodes were shown but I don’t have the ratings for those.
Schedule is here.

[Ian Symes]

I remember the repeats just before VIII vividly – it was II Re-Mastered. That big two-and-half-minute trailer was shown after one of them.

[JamesTC]

[thomasaevans]

Yup I have the recording of the Series 2 Remastered repeat with the VIII star wars spoof trailer on the end.

[Danny Stephenson]

‘Better Then Life’?

[JamesTC]

Yeah, in the Re-Mastered version they changed it to make it funnier.

I was wondering how long it would spot someone to find the typo.

[Ian Symes]

Are you sure about the Only The Good figure? I seem to recall it being much lower than that, due to the not-very-well-publicised switch to Monday night and the lack of same-week repeat.

[Mr-Stabby]

Ha, look at those Series 8 ratings. It’s amazing how the ratings coincide with most of fandoms opinion about Series 8. Real excitement for episode 1, then suddenly the ratings drop substantially over the next few episodes, only raising again when we got ‘Cassandra’ and therefore the possibility of the series getting better, dropping again when we saw ‘Krytie TV’, then seeing ‘Pete Part 1’ and realising all hope was lost. I’m surprised ‘Only the Good’ got such a high rating.

[JamesTC]

Just checked again and the figure is correct. Third for the week on BBC Two (behind Buzzcocks and Gardeners World).

[Danny Stephenson]

i wish i could explain how this works, but when I notice that a word is spelt incorrectly. it looks “bolder” than the surrounding text. Can’t explain it, moving on.

Can someone explain BARB ratings in this thread? I know it’s something that is misconstrued quite often, when looking at figures. ‘oh the audience went down by 1.2 million the following episode…’

Some clarification would be helpful here. Ta.

[thomasaevans]

In wales… we didn’t get ‘Only The Good’ on this date…

[Pete Part Three]

>Can someone explain BARB ratings in this thread?

In brief; 5000 homes in the UK have little boxes connected to their TV’s, keeping track of what people are watching and those numbers are totted up and then multiplied to give us ratings. The BARB households are supposed to be a cross-section of the general viewer-ship but is, clearly, prone to a rather large margin of error…what with it truly only representing less than 0.01% of the UK households.

I think Charlie Brooker did a feature on BARB for Screenwipe which is, no doubt, on YouTube.

[Ridley]

You’d think the tech would be in every home by now.

[JamesTC]

To add to what Pete has said, the BARB figures are Live + 7 day so it includes catch up figures via DVR (iPlayer isn’t included for BBC programmes yet (well aside from the iPlayer on Virgin)).

That is why I included the overnights on the BTE list. The overnights are far more important than the overall final figure for a commercial broadcaster (and it is the other way around for the BBC, the BBC don’t care how or when people watch, just so long as they DO watch it).

The overnights figures for BTE (adding the 8 airings over the 4 days) all push 2 million which is utterly spectacular.

The final figures are still important for BTE, they give us an indication of how much of an audience is there for Dwarf, whether they watch it live or later.

[Nick R]

EDIT……..I JUST CHECKED AGAIN AND NOTICED THEY WERE YOUR POSTINGS THEN TOO. IGNORE ME

IGNORE YOU?

I remember the repeats just before VIII vividly – it was II Re-Mastered. That big two-and-half-minute trailer was shown after one of them.

After Queeg, I think.

SoundableObject: On those Series VIII ratings, Pete Part 2 and Only the Good are only listed as being on one day. Weren’t they repeated? Or were they only repeated over a week after their first broadcast, and hence not within the period covered by those figures?

[JamesTC]

SoundableObject: On those Series VIII ratings, Pete Part 2 and Only the Good are only listed as being on one day. Weren’t they repeated? Or were they only repeated over a week after their first broadcast, and hence not within the period covered by those figures?

Yeah, the last two episodes had no repeat figure within a week of broadcast. A shame since it looks like the last two figures are really bad when in actuality they are in line with the rest of the series. Plus ‘Only the Good…’ aired out of usual slot so it makes its performance all the more spectacular.

Makes the BBC position on Series IX seem quite idiotic. But of course we all knew that.

[pfm]

Eight. Million. Fucking. Viewers.

BBC TV should have been on its knees begging the boys from the Dwarf to return to their former home!

[Pete Part Three]

Consolidated viewing figures. Interesting.

Did some people watch Back in the Red pt1 twice? Were the missing millions from Only the Good’s audience expecting a repeat that never happened? Is the rapidly falling ratings an indication of the dive in quality of the show? Or is it because the show was moved around in the schedules?

All, some or, perhaps, none of these questions will be answered.

The Series 2 repeat ratings are a bit more straightforward aren’t they?

[Carlito]

> BBC TV should have been on its knees begging the boys from the Dwarf to return to their former home!

They were. According to Doug himself at the time, after series VIII the BBC requested a new series every other year for as long as they could keep it going. He also said he wouldn’t be writing it and would be turning the whole thing over to new writers.

This was before the momentum killing movie debacle, and obviously things changed as the years went by. Let’s not forget it was YEARS after VIII that we heard the BBC’s stance on more Red Dwarf. They probably felt that the ‘audience they are no longer interested in’ no longer existed to be of interest in the first place. A long sabbatical on TV (for shows that don’t have such a solid core fanbase as Dwarf, at least) can potentially be the kiss of death.

If it wasn’t for the movie dream/nightmare, we probably would have seen Red Dwarf IX in 2001.

[A Bailey]

Red Dwarf with an entirely new writing staff would have been interesting. Can’t imagine it being middling, would either have been utterly fantastic, or complete tripe.

[Pete Part Three]

The second one.

[JamesTC]

Did some people watch Back in the Red pt1 twice? Were the missing millions from Only the Good’s audience expecting a repeat that never happened? Is the rapidly falling ratings an indication of the dive in quality of the show? Or is it because the show was moved around in the schedules?

I believe BARB remove a certain percentage of viewers to account for repeat viewing.

From the first 6 ratings I think the series had basically levelled out at around 6 million. Both Pete Part 2 and Only the Good… would have scored in or around 6 with a Sunday repeat.

[Carlito]

You would think it the digital age they would have facilities in place to find out to the exact number how many viewers are watching something live, at least.

[Mr-Stabby]

You would think it the digital age they would have facilities in place to find out to the exact number how many viewers are watching something live, at least.

I’ve often thought this. But I can think of two reasons as to why they haven’t. Firstly i imagine there would be an uproar with regards to Data Protection, i.e. how dare they spy on me, and record what i’m watching etc etc. Secondly i reckon they’re probably too scared of what the actual viewing figures will be. They’re probably worried that they invest money into finding out actual viewing figures, only to find out they’re half what BARB says they are, and they lose advertising revenue.

Of course, i have no facts to back any of this up, it just makes sense in my own head :D

[Carlito]

I get what you mean re: data protection but the provisions they put in place to record that data could ensure that you cannot identify which household neccessarily watched what, just how many there were.

The advertising revenue is more likely. But then it could swing the opposite way too.

At the very least, you’d think the BBC would be trying mto make this happen, as they don’t rely on advertising revenue and it would fit into the theory of giving value for the license fee if they know which shows are actually popular and which aren’t.

[si]

They can find out when you’re watching TV without a licence, surely they they can find out *what* you’re watching *with* a licence?

[Pete Part Three]

>They can find out when you’re watching TV without a licence

Nope

[Mr-Stabby]

I’ve seen in those TV detector vans, that little spinning satellite is being controlled by a hamster running in a wheel. There’s nothing else in there. It’s all lies!!

[Tarka Dal]

Yes, but the hamster is trained in telepathy. Sorry, telly-pathy.

[Danny Stephenson]

We know you’ve got a telly. We detected it…

[Jimboid]

Have we got a video?

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

YES WE’VE GOT A VIDEO

[Seb Patrick]

Right, there’s nothing else for it. Karl: eat the television.

[Author]

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