ITV in comedy ratings woe

It is becoming apparent that the new comedy output on ITV1 is damaging the channel's audience share. Last night comedy-drama Bonkers and package-holiday sitcom Benidorm lost a combined 3m viewers. ITV's Executives are no doubt now sweating because it would appear their Thursday night ratings are in freefall with both the prime-time comedies still having three more weeks to run.

Bonkers, which stars Liza Tarbuck, Mark Addy and Lynda Bellingham, managed only 2.8m viewers (just one in eight of the audience watching at this time). The sex-obsessed comedy was trashed by the return of Hotel Babylon to BBC1, it took a quarter of the audience at 9pm.

Derren Litten's Benidorm also suffered - it averaged 3.6m viewers according to the unofficial overnight figures. Two weeks ago it had 5.3m. Benidorm was Paul Jackson's first commission since returning to ITV as Director of Entertainment and Comedy... so not a great start for him.

It seems ITV just can't get comedy right anymore – The Abbey, which followed The Brit Awards on Wednesday night didn't perform in the ratings either. Only 2.1m viewers sat down to watch Morwenna Banks' pilot and, more worryingly, by the end of the half hour only 1.8m were still watching.