Sunday 18 December 2011

Merlin Gets Biggest Ever Overnight Ratings

Last night's episode of Merlin, episode twelve, The Sword in the Stone: Part 1 improved week by week by one and a half million viewers, to reach overnight ratings of 7.19 million viewers from 8.05pm to 8.50pm last night. This was helped by being sandwiched by the finals of Strictly Come Dancing, and the fact that it was not up against The X Factor (which finished last week), instead a screening of Harry Potter And The Order of the Phoenix over on ITV1. This is not only the highest overnight rating of the series so far (the previous holder of that record was Lancelot Du Lac with 6.01 million) but the highest ever overnight rating over the four series so far of Merlin! When the consolidated ratings are released next week, we should see the ratings timeshift up to 8 million plus: a record for Merlin.

Next week is at 8pm on Christmas Eve, not before or after Strictly, but the episode should benefit from being against Text Santa on ITV1, and having a primetime slot on Christmas Eve.

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