Olympics close on a high note

BBC1's coverage of the closing ceremony of the Olympic games ended on a high note with an average audience of 5.5m (42.3%).

The entire coverage, which lasted for more than three hours from 12noon, hit a substantial peak of 6.8m (47.3%) at 2pm.

BBC1's audience between 12noon and 3.15pm was up by 244% on the channel's slot average for the year so far of 1.6m (16.3%).

During the ceremony BBC1 had over double the audience of its nearest competitor, ITV1, at the time. The commercial network was no slouch though as it picked up 2.6m (20.3%) between 12noon and 3.10pm as it aired live coverage of the European Grand Prix from Valencia. The Formula 1 coverage pushed the channel substantially past its slot average for the year so far of 1.6m (16.9%).

The Olympics coverage marked the high point of a strong daytime line-up for BBC1 which saw the channel secure an impressive share of 35.9% between 6am and 6pm. ITV1 was the second most popular channel during daytime with a share of 16.3%.

Before the closing ceremony the two-hour coverage of the final day's competitions – which included volleyball, water polo and handball – averaged 2.5m (28.7%) between 10am and 12noon.

BBC1 also capitalised on the last day of the Olympics with coverage of the London 2012 Party. Between 3.15pm and 5pm, the channel averaged a sizeable 3.9m, a third of all viewers at the time. ITV1's film Carry On Jack held up 1.1m (9.2%).

While BBC1 dominated daytime, ITV1 had a clear run of things during peaktime. Picking up 6.3m (31.2%) at 7.30pm was Coronation Street which was followed at 8pm with Heartbeat on 6.4m (30.1%).

BBC1's news programme at 7.35pm informed 4m (19.9%), which was followed by Pacific Abyss on 3.5m (16.5%), down by 400,000 on last week's opener.

ITV1 stayed in front at 9pm with its new Martin Clunes-fronted show, A Man and His Dogs, on a sizeable 5.7m (24.7%). BBC1's final part of Britain From Above took 4.5m (19.6%) in the same hour-long slot.

Both BBC2 and Five dedicated a large chunk of their peaktime schedules to films. Five's thriller Vertical Limit, at 7.45pm took 1.3m (6.1%). Similarly, BBC2's movie AI: Artificial Intelligence, also at 7.45pm, had 1.3m (5.8%).

Channel 4's Wife Swap at 8pm appealed to 1.8m (8.5%) with an additional 275,000 watching on C4+1. Big Brother followed on at 9pm and drew a strong 2.6m (11.1%) for an hour. A further 389,000 preferred to watch an hour later on the timeshifted option.

All hours shares for Tuesday 19 August 2008: BBC1 – 26.1%, ITV1 – 16.3%, BBC2 – 8.3%, C4 – 5.5% (C4+1 – 0.8%), Five – 5%, multichannel – 38%.

Peaktime (6pm to 10.30pm) shares: ITV1 – 24.4%, BBC1 – 19.1%, BBC2 – 7.7%, C4 – 7.2% (C4+1 – 0.7%), Five – 6.4%, multichannel – 34.7%.

Source: Broadcast