Vote 2005: Tuesday's news ratings

Each day during the election campaign, Digital Spy will be tracking the performance of the major news broadcasters. Check in daily for a roundup of the latest ratings for the terrestrial news programmes and the rolling news channels.

Overnight data for Tuesday, April 19 follows.

Terrestrials: Summary

The BBC's Ten O'Clock News ranked highest with an average of 5.82 million (29%), up by almost 2 million on Monday. ITV1's late bulletin was down to 1.9 million (12.8%) at 10.30pm.

Elsewhere, Labour's latest election broadcast attracted an aggregate audience of 14.92 million across showings on all the major channels.

News Channels: Summary

Sky News proved to be the channel of choice for the announcement of the new Pope, with a hefty average of 223,000 viewers (2.28%) between 5pm and 7pm. News 24 had 100,000 (1.18%) over the same period.

Viewers quickly lost interest, however, and figures returned to normal during primetime. News 24 was back in the lead for the most part following Sky News' triumph the day before.

News channels: Primetime Breakdown

7pm - 8pm
Sky News (The Boulton Factor): 41,000 (0.31%)
News 24: 63,000 (0.48%)

8pm - 9pm
Sky News: 37,000 (0.24%)
News 24: 30,000 (0.19%)

9pm - 10pm
Sky News: 33,000 (0.21%)
News 24: 46,000 (0.29%)

10pm - 11pm
Sky News: 40,000 (0.31%)
News 24: 46,000 (0.37%)

Ratings data supplied by ViewingFigures.com