Britannia Low

 

The launch of ITV’s high-profile teen series, Britannia High, was something of a ratings disaster for the channel last night as it was comprehensively beaten by an antique..well the Antiques Roadshow.

 

ITV’s high-profile new drama series, Britannia High, didn’t get off to the start ITV were hoping for. The drama series, dubbed the modern-day Fame, failed to make a massive impact on the ratings despite a blaze of publicity. There had been rumours that ITV would place the drama series up against Strictly Come Dancing, believing their drama series would batter the celebrity dancing contest.

Luckily for ITV common sense prevailed there but the new series still went up against a popular feature of the BBC schedules, the Antiques Roadshow. Britannia High is the brainchild of Arlene Phillips, one of the judges on Strictly Come Dancing, and stars Mitch Hewer who played Maxxie in the E4 series, Skins. But neither Arlene Phillips or Mitch Hewer had enough star power to draw audiences to the show with just 3.3 million viewers tuning in. Fiona Bruce and the Antiques Roadshow meanwhile enjoyed ratings of 8.7 million.

While the launch of ITV’s new drama series more or less failed the BBC enjoyed 6.3 million for the launch of its new period drama, Little Dorrit. The opening episode of the 14 part series performed well at 8pm and wasn’t that far behind A Touch of Frost on ITV1 at the same time.

Meanwhile Heartbeat continues to the battered in the ratings by Strictly Come Dancing with the 60’s cop show attracting just 5.6 million against 9.6 million for Strictly Come Dancing.