EastEnders ratings reaches all time low

This article is interesting from Media Guardian...

Just when EastEnders bosses thought things could not get any worse, following the suspension of actor Leslie Grantham following a tabloid expose of internet sex sessions, the flagship BBC1 soap's audience last night slumped to what is believed to be its lowest ever.
Last night's edition of the beleaguered soap had just 6.4 million viewers and a 34% share of the audience between 7.30pm and 8pm, according to unofficial overnights.

The figures are the lowest for EastEnders' since the current Barb audience research system was introduced in 1992 - and are believed to be soap's worst ratings ever.

EastEnders lost out to the second half of an hour-long Emmerdale special, which had more than a million extra viewers than the BBC1 soap when they were head to head and an average of 7.6 million overall between 7pm and 8pm.

EastEnders was more than 4 million viewers down on last week's average of nearly 11 million Last night's ratings debacle caps a dismal run for the BBC1 soap, which began when it failed to be nominated in the best soap category at the Bafta TV awards. Critics have suggested the soap's storylines have begun to lose their way.

EastEnders' poor performance last night helped ITV1 to a rare Tuesday peak time ratings victory, with a 26.7% share of the audience between 7pm and 10.30pm, against BBC1's 25.7%. BBC1's woes were compounded when Cutting It lost out to both ITV1's Bad Girls and the last of Channel 4's Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares between 9pm and 10pm. The hairdressing drama had only 4.1 million viewers, less than one in five of the audience, against the second of a three-part Bad Girls special starring Zoe Lucker from Footballers' Wives, which attracted 5.6 million.

Well if you compare Eastenders with Emmerdale, the latter is streets ahead. Emmerdale have lined up a superb cast and storylines, and there is so much energy and comedy compared to the rather slow and turgid Eastenders.

I wonder if ITV will be considering running Emmerdale as two hour long episodes on a Tuesday and Thursday in future, now that a blow has been dealt to Eastenders. It's not the ratings powerhouse it once used to be.

You mean to say the Leslie Grantham sex allegations hasnt INCREASED viewers to the programme?

I thought it was all a cunning ploy pulled off by the BBC to get the viewers up.

Get the viewers "up"?

I can safely say it did nothing of the sort for me.

EASTENDERS RATINGS AT AN ALL TIME LOW - OH NO ! ! !
Sorry - couldn't resist!

Yet another gangster storyline is dominating Eastenders at present. Apart from that and the wittering Dot/Pauline organising an unbelievavble wedding of Sonia/Martin, there is nothing going for the soap. IMHO I think the scriptwriters were wrong to let Kat sleep with Andy and possibly jeopardise the only "nice" partnership in the entire programme. The appeal of Kat and Alfie was that viewers actually wanted them to be happy and I think alot of people have become disappointed by the storyline at present. And as for Sam Mitchell being a "gangster type" heroine, well please!

GET RID OF GANGSTERS! They are boring and really belong only in cop shows.

this is just typical of a BBC show... need i say more!

It's a far cry from the Mal Young or John Yorke days of only a few years ago. I've been a fan for years yet lost interest somehow about a year or more ago and haven't watched much since. What I do see is unoriginal, tired and lacking energy as said above. While all the other soaps have worked hard at maintaining quality over sensationalism, EastEnders seems to have gone the lazy route, opting for big, poorly devised plots that they neither have the strengh of cast nor writer to see through. The talent on the writing team must exist though as they once did produce a show that easily beat the rest, but for the last while though, it's only a shadow of it's former self.

It sounds harsh to put all the show's problems down to one woman, Louise Berridge, but as executive producer, the shift in quality and direction under one reign to another does suggest that the executive producer of a show is the key bit of casting that either makes or breaks the show. At the moment, I'd say my interest fell from when her era commenced. In comparison, Neighbours fans will be aware of that soap's overhaul this past twelve months, and their change of executive producer to Ric P was even called by cast and crew a 'regime change' as it was so significant in nature.

For EastEnders to succeed as BBC1's flagship production, it needs quite a bit of work to get to where it should be. On the other hand, well done Emmerdale for their performance, that's one show that's consistently watchable I think, and well reflected in the figures.

think they need a major disaster story line like a tube derailment and one of the carriages crashing into the market and the other into the laundry and then at least thats pauline and dot dead, and the ferrairras, to name a few.

"Kat and Alfie" (the couple) have really been at the centre of the problem.

Whilst they are both sparky and sometimes engaging individually, they very quickly burned out with all that 'will they/won't they' nonsense.

Every little strory beat is stretched way beyond belief with the EastEnders' favourite hackneyed technique:

---------------------------
PERSON A: "I've got something I need to say..."

PERSON B: "Before you do, let me tell you something - blah blah. Now what did you want to tell me?"

PERSON A: "Oh nothing, it doesn't matter."

[REPEAT FOR 3 MORE EPISODES]
---------------------------

It doesn't really matter what the "blah blah" is, but you can be assured that it will delay the necessary conversation for so many episodes, you truly won't care what the outcome is.

The Andy character is merely a device to add conflict between Kat and Alfie, and its just going to get worse.

Spoilers:

Alfie discovers Kat has cheated and thumps her

Kat goes away for a while

Little Mo comes back

Little Mo and Alfie have an affair

So, another 3 months of K&A stories. You would think they would learn their lesson - we've been moaning about the show for months now.

Well it's not too late you know! Click Here

Yes, it has become extremely predictable, to the point where you can most of the time guess what each character is going to say - there is hardly any element of intrigue any more, and it is very unrealistic. They need to get rid of this predictability and staleness of it all.