The first episode in the new series of Britannia High was expected to dominate the ratings when it was broad casted on Oct 26th but to ITV’s surprise, the teen drama didn’t live up to expectation and was smashed by BBC’s Antiques Roadshow.
The Antiques Roadshow was first shown on our screens back in 1977 and has been a success for the BBC ever since. Michael Apel used to host the show but has since been replaced by Fiona Bruce for the current series.
ITV’s £2 Million show could only scrape together 3.3 million viewers whereas the oldies favorite took the lime light with 8.8 million viewers (38% share), who would prefer to watch local residence across the UK purchasing antiques.
ITV’s Britannia High is said to be a mix of popular programs such as ‘Fame’ & ‘High School Musical’ which follows the story of 6 preforming art school students. ITV has spent an awful lot on the show in advertising over the couple of months to draw in its target audience (youth) but was no match for the Antiques Roadshow cross generational appeal.
ITV bosses are still remaining hopeful saying that:-
Britannia High had made a solid start in a competitive schedule.
ITV still plan to go ahead with a the arena tour and single they had originally planned from the show. They are also planning to increase the shows awareness by launching a range of multi-media spin-offs such as creating personal pages for each character on social networking sites. The final episode of the series will see a live 75minute contest between the shows characters which ITV believes will be a great success.