ITV’s flagship annual television awards extravaganza suffered another slump in overnight viewers, recording an average audience of 2.3 million according to industry data reported by Broadcast.
ITV TV Awards: Averaged 2.3 million viewers (17.7% share), dipping below the 2025 rebound of 2.7 million and trailing the 2.3 million (17.7%) slot average, despite peaking at 2.5 million (24.5%) at 9:00 PM.
BBC One: Celebrity MasterChef pulled in a steady 1.6 million viewers (16% share) in the same slot, well behind its typical 2.5 million benchmark.
BBC Two: Episode four of Expectation’s six-part documentary Emergency 24/7 reached 790,000 viewers (8.1% share).
Channel 4: The Jury: 14 and on Trial for Murder continued its run with 429,000 viewers (4.4% share).
Channel 5: Drama series The Game dropped to 311,000 viewers (3.2% share), significantly underperforming against the channel’s 1.2 million slot average.
The latest figures mark another ratings blow for ITV, which has been grappling with a string of high-profile broadcast flops in recent months, including underperforming launches for The Voice UK and Gary Lineker-fronted game show The Box.
While the awards extravaganza managed to win its 9:00 PM hour overall and captured almost a quarter of all active linear viewers at its peak, the broader trajectory remains a headache for network executives.
The ceremony had temporarily reversed a decade-long decline in 2025 when it bounced back to 2.7 million viewers (23% share) on a Wednesday evening in September. That brief uplift followed years of steadily shrinking linear audiences, which had hit a historic low of 2.4 million (22% share) in September 2024. The 2026 broadcast has now erased those gains, sliding back down to 2.3 million.
How the Rival Channels Performed
BBC One and BBC Two
BBC One provided the closest competition at 9:00 PM with Celebrity MasterChef, which delivered a reliable 1.6 million viewers (16% share). Although enough to secure second place across the main terrestrial channels, the cooking format sat comfortably below its usual 2.5 million (17.7%) slot benchmark. Over on BBC Two, episode four of Expectation’s emergency series Emergency 24/7 gathered 790,000 viewers (8.1% share), slightly down on the previous week’s 884,000 (9.7%).
Channel 4 and Channel 5
Channel 4’s courtroom experiment The Jury: 14 and on Trial for Murder logged 429,000 viewers (4.4% share) for its penultimate episode, falling short of its 1.1 million slot average.
Unusually for Channel 5, returning drama The Game continued to underperform. The third episode slipped from 350,000 (3.8%) to 311,000 viewers (3.2% share)—a fraction of Channel 5’s robust 1.2 million (8.6%) slot benchmark. Industry watchers suggest the rating drop may stem from Channel 5’s core audience preferring self-contained, one-off drama miniseries rather than serialized, returning storylines.
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