The UK’s leading commercial broadcaster ITV has had its best start of a year in terms of audience share in more than a decade.
On March 23, after noting a general softening in advertising and restrictions on working practices in filming due to the coronavirus outbreak, ITV warned of a forthcoming significant drop in projected revenues. However, the broadcaster’s main channel, ITV1, marked up an 18% share of overall viewing in the first three months of 2020, its best annual first quarter performance since 2009, and the channel's fifth successive year of Q1 share of viewing growth. ITV main channel's share of commercial viewing was 26.7%, its highest since 2011.
During the first quarter of the year, the company’s performance was bolstered by wide audiences, including the biggest ever viewership for “Saturday Night Takeaway,” with 10.6 million in late March.
In terms of single episode consolidated performance, among ITV’s top 10 shows were “Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway,” which attracted 10.580 million viewers on March 21, followed by “White House Farm” (8.673 million), “Coronation Street” (7.838 million), “Vera” (7.819 million), and “The Masked Singer” (7.571 million).