Dancing on Ice peaks at 8.2 million

By Maisie McCabe, brandrepublic.com, Monday, 23 January 2012 11:48AM

ITV1's 'Dancing on Ice' attracted a peak audience of 8.2 million viewers last night, as the show recorded its lowest audiences so far this series, despite beating BBC One's 'Birdsong'.

Chico and Matthew Wolfenden: Dancing on Ice contestants

According to unofficial overnight figures, the first episode of 'Dancing on Ice' had an average audience of 7.11 million, a 27.7% share, between 6.15pm and 8.30pm on ITV1 and ITV1 HD. An additional 219,900 watched the show on ITV1 +1.

Mark Rhodes (one half of children's TV duo Sam & Mark) left the skating competition during ‘Dancing on Ice: The Skate-Off’ which had an average audience of 5.95 million, a 23.0% share. An additional 225,700 watched the show on ITV1 +1.

Last night’s first and second shows peaked at 8.2 million and 6.2 million respectively across ITV1 and ITV1 HD. Including ITV1 +1, the peaks were 8.5 million and 6.4 million, down from 10 million and 7.5 million last year.

Average audiences were also down from last year, when the main show pulled in an average of 8.4 million viewers, a 31% share, and the skate-off attracted an average of 7.3 million viewers, a 27% share, across ITV1, ITV1 HD and ITV1 +1.

However, the end of ‘Wild at Heart’ and ‘Dancing on Ice: the Skate-Off’ got bigger audiences than the first hour of BBC One’s new high-profile adaptation of the Sebastian Faulks modern classic novel, ‘Birdsong’.

‘Birdsong’ recorded an average audience of 6.03 million viewers, a 23.6% share of the available audience, between 9pm and 10.30pm on BBC One and BBC One HD.

On Saturday night, ITV1’s dating show ‘Take Me Out’ had an average audience of 4.5 million viewers, a 20.0% share, between 7pm and 8.15pm on ITV1 and ITV1 HD. An additional 248,000 watched the show on ITV1 +1.

Follow Maisie McCabe on Twitter @MaisieMcCabe

This article was first published on brandrepublic.com