ITV's new Saturday schedule, which included the new celebrity reality show 'Drop the Celebrity', took only a 16.5% share of the audience throughout the day. During peaktime of 6pm-10.30pm, ITV's audience share rose to 16.5%, almost half the 34.7% share enjoyed by BBC One.
At one stage on Saturday night, ITV1 was a mere 300,000 viewers ahead of Five, which attracted 2.3m for its 'CSI: Miami' show.
ITV has blamed the bad figures on the fact that Henman's match, which he won 6-3 6-1 6-4, ran late, saying: "Tim Henman's Wimbledon match ran late on BBC One affecting ratings for other channels including ITV. It was also extremely good weather, which always reduces TV audiences. It was a blip, not a trend."
ITV was likely to have been hit hard again last night as Henman won his match against Argentine David Nalbandian in four nailbiting sets in a game that was broadcast in its entirety on BBC One. The match finished at almost 9pm, knocking the BBC's schedule into touch.
ITV's new show 'Drop the Celebrity', which showed celebrities being made to parachute from an airplane, drew in 3.1m viewers. 'Blind Date' regularly pulled in 8m viewers on a Saturday night.
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