It is called Britain’s Biggest Adventure with Bear Grylls but the intrepid explorer’s latest ITV series delivered one of its smallest prime-time audiences with just 1.5 million viewers.
The opening episode, in which Grylls climbed, canoed and paraglided around Wales, lost out to Channel 5’s Celebrity Big Brother and Channel 4’s Educating Cardiff and had a fraction of the audience watching BBC1’s long-running drama, New Tricks.
The series, in which Grylls told viewers “you don’t always have to travel to the ends of the earth to experience incredible adventures and mind-blowing landscapes” looks set to be ITV’s latest factual flop at 9pm.
The channel is looking to arrest a ratings decline which saw a 4% fall in viewing in the first half of this year.
Its factual programming was identified as a key area of concern by ITV chief executive Adam Crozier in its half year results in July. Julia Bradbury’s Wonder of Britain was pulled from the schedule at the beginning of the year, with the remaining episodes played out in the summer.
“I think in factual we have had problems, particularly at 9pm where we have underperformed, but we are very focused on that,” Crozier said.
But Britain’s Biggest Adventure with Bear Grylls could only manage 1.5 million viewers, a 7.7% share of the audience, down 31.8% on the channel’s three-month slot average.
It was beaten by Channel 5’s Celebrity Big Brother, the live eviction show watched by 1.7 million viewers, an 8.2% share, also from 9pm, and Channel 4’s Educating Cardiff, which had 1.6 million viewers (7.8%).
The slot was won by BBC1’s New tricks, with just under 5 million viewers (24.9%).
At the same, time, BBC2’s drama about the battle behind the hit game, Grand Theft Auto, could not break a million despite the star power of Daniel Radcliffe. The Gamechangers had 887,000 viewers, a 4.7% share.
Grylls, whose Channel 4 series The Island with Bear Grylls won a Bafta this year, will return to ITV next year with a second series of his celebrity survival show, Bear Grylls: Mission Survive.
