'Superhuman Saturday' peaks at 3.2m viewers

By Maisie McCabe, brandrepublic.com, 03 September 2012, 09:54AM

Superhuman Saturday in the London 2012 Paralympic Games brought a peak audience of 3.2 million viewers to Channel 4 on Saturday night, behind BBC One's 'Doctor Who' and ITV1's 'Red or Black?'.

Paralympics coverage: Ellie Simmonds breaks a world record in the women's SM6 200m IM final

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According to unofficial overnight figures, Channel 4’s coverage of the Paralympics on Saturday night peaked at 3.20 million viewers at 8.05pm, a 13.9% share.

Saturday brought five gold medals for ParalympicsGB: Ellie Simmonds in the S6 400m freestyle in the pool; in the velodrome Sarah Storey won the cycling time trial and Neil Fachie and Barney Storey won the tandem 1km time trial; on the track amputee Richard Whitehead won the T42 200m; and Natasha Baker won the grade II equestrian.

Over the main Saturday night Paralympic show Channel 4 and Channel 4 HD had an average audience of 2.56 million viewers, an 11.7% share, between 7pm and 10.30pm. An additional average of 105,900 tuned in on Channel 4 +1.

Channel 4's Paralymics coverage is sponsored by BT and Sainsbury's.

The third episode of ITV’s singing talent show ‘The X Factor’ had a peak audience of 9.20 million viewers, a 37.6% share of the television-watching audience, across ITV1 and ITV1 HD at 9pm, the most-watched show of the day. Including ITV1 +1 the peak was 9.7 million.

Between 8.15pm and 9.15pm, ‘The X Factor’ had an average audience of 8.14 million viewers, a 35.0% share, across ITV1 and ITV1 HD. An additional average of 421,500 watched the show on ITV1 +1.

‘The X Factor’ audience was down from last week and the third episode of ‘The X Factor’ last year, which had a total average audience of 11.1 million viewers, and slightly down from the first episode of this series.

Saturday’s first episode of ‘Red or Black?’ had an average audience of 3.38 million viewers on ITV1 and ITV1 HD, a 15.4% share, between 7.30pm and 8.15pm. An additional 70,300 watched the first ‘Red or Black?’ on ITV1 +1.

The second instalment of ‘Red or Black?’ was watched by 3.17 million viewers, a 13.8% share, between 9.15pm and 10pm on ITV1 and ITV1 HD. An hour later, an average of 12,400 watched the show on ITV1 +1.

The return of Matt Smith as ‘Doctor Who’ attracted an average audience of 6.38 million viewers between 7.15pm and 8.15pm across BBC One and BBC One HD, a 29.3% share of the TV-watching audience.

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