I have researched viewing figures on BARB, first I researched viewing figures for the

week ending the 26th of September 2010 with the top 10 most popular programmes. For
BBC 1 it shows that Eastenders is the most popular taking the top 4 places, Eastenders
does not air on Wednesday but if it did that is a strong possibility that it would take the
top 5 places. Eastenders has been around since 1985 so it has years to build its audience
and viewers. Also the wide range of characters from London attracts all different types
of people.
Mondays episode reached 10, 215 000 viewer ratings and Friday has the lowest number
of viewers out of all of the 4 days it is aired, this shows that Friday is a less popular day
for people to watch soaps, this could be due to people going out and socializing.

On the other hand, Hollyoaks on Channel 4 is not as popular as the other

On ITV
soaps.1 the top 10 included
Hollyoaks only just2scraped
soaps. Although
the top 30Coronation
with Monday’sSt is episode
not the most popular
reaching
on ITV1th its figures are very similar to that of Eastenders. However, Friday’s viewing
25 place. Once again Monday’s episode has reached the most viewings over
figures are also
the other much
days. lower 4than
Channel has the
notMonday episode
been running forfigures.
as long Coronation
as BB1 and St is the
ITV1
longest running soap and has therefore had years to build its audience
so that may have caused the drop in ratings and also Hollyoaks has only been also.
Emmerdale
running on the1995
since othersohand has smaller
therefore has notviewing figuresyears
had as many but ittostill
pickreaches the top 10.
up a large
Thisaudience.
shows that despite the soap being set in the countryside with a smaller target
audience to aim at, it is still extremely popular.