'Quantum of Solace' pulls in 4.7m viewers for UK terrestrial premiere

30-Mar-2011 • Bond News

The 2008 James Bond film "Quantum of Solace" took over two years to make it to the free-to-air small screen in the UK, but for national broadcaster ITV1, it was worth the wait. Bond boosted ITV to the top of the Saturday night prime-time ratings average with 22.4% of the national audience.

Daniel Craig's second outing as 007 pulled in an impressive average of 4.727 million viewers for ITV between 9pm and 11pm, which was an audience share of 23.3% during the broadcast on Saturday 26th March 2011. A further 232,000 watched 'time shifted' within 24 hours.

Elsewhere, BBC1's long-running flagship drama "Casualty" pulled in 5.42 million (24.1%) between 9pm and 9:50pm beating Bond in the first hour and was followed by the BBC News with 4.15m (19.8%), but then "Live at The Apollo" dropped to 2.64m (14.7%) between 10:10pm and 11pm when more people were tuned to 007.

BBC2's new show "Goldie's Band: by Royal Appointment" (the DJ appeared in "The World Is Not Enough" as Mr Bullion) was watched by just 500,000, and Channel 4's "Peter Kay's Britain's Got the Pop Factor" scoped 1.32m (6.5%).

Back in September 2009, "Casino Royale" made its terrestrial broadcast debut ITV1 and landed 5.1m and 3.5m for the first and second hours respectively (ITV News was broadcast in between). The ratings for "Casino Royale" were a disappointment to the broadcaster, but many attributed this to the long wait from its theatrical release, ITV's decision to broadcast in 'pan & scan' format rather than widescreen, and the immense popularity of the DVD.