WoS/World of Sport re-debuted on ITV last night in the 5pm time slot. This was the first time that the programme had aired on the channel since the New Year’s Eve 2016 special which reportedly earned around 1.25 million viewers.

The rating now appears to be in for the first show as the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB) allegedly posted a number of 0.9 million (around 920,000) average with an 8.7% share. The show apparently peaked at 1.1 million. This has however now been refuted by John Williams, a scheduler at ITV who claimed that this figure was incorrect, or at least wasn’t the full picture:

the figure you published does not include +1 or HD viewing

— John Williams (@JohnWilliams004) July 29, 2018

the number we received this morning was higher than what you published.

— John Williams (@JohnWilliams004) July 29, 2018

Apparently the overnight numbers published by BARB do not include +1 or HD viewing, so the 920k figure would purely be based on Standard Definition/SD viewers. What this means for the actual number is now really up in the air…The 5pm time slot on ITV last week drew around 1.5 million at a 16% share and peaked at 2.3 million according to The WATW who initially posted the overnight numbers, this was for well established game show ‘The Chase’ which itself is not an ‘on demand’ heavy programme as it’s regularly shown and not episodic:

Slightly lower. Last week, The Chase averages around 1.5m, 16% share. Peaked at 2.3m.

— The WATW (@the_watw) July 29, 2018

So if ITV were able to draw an extra 500-600k viewers from the HD and +1 versions of the show then this would be a far more respectable number than the initially believed 920k. Either way the fact that nearly 1 million people saw British professional wrestling is quite the achievement for a show that was not heavily publicised…however it is also true that numbers will likely need to improve for the coming 9 weeks to truly be classed as a success both on the WoS and ITV fronts. It is also very important to remember that potential viewers via Sky Plus (DVR) or the ITV Hub (on demand) could be taking a portion off of the live viewership.

A re-run of the debut episode ran this morning on ITV in the 10:50am-11:50 time slot and it will be extremely interesting to see the number that this generates, the show is definitely aimed at a family demographic and the ‘breakfast viewing’ audience could be lucrative.