Bionic Woman

Bionic Woman’s premiere scored record ratings for ITV2 this week, as Michelle Ryan’s butt kicking babe helped the niche channel score the biggest audience of the channel’s history.  According to Variety, show gathered 2.2 million viewers, over six times the channel’s average (other sources are reporting numbers that are as high as 2.4 million viewers).

Bionic Woman started off strong in the United States as well, when over 13 million viewers tuned in for the premiere and made the show the most-watched new show of the fall in key demographics.  Then high turnover and last minute changes created shaky story lines and a lack of cohesion, and ratings suffered as the show stumbled around looking for a new direction.

Still, the huge increase in viewers for niche channel ITV2 is great news for Bionic Woman, as the British press has not been shy about reporting that BW has been canceled even when there is no official word from NBC.  For the show to pull the channel’s best audience in history, even as the full episode is available in various places on the Internet (such as hulu.com) is a huge accomplishment.

Bionic Woman beat the channel’s previous high, a showing of Footballer’s Wives: Extra Time in 2005 that was watched by 1.9 million viewers.  Footballer’s Wives was a swift-moving soap with scandalous storylines that generated a rabid following.  The show’s highest premiere before Bionic Woman was last year’s Diary of a Secret Call Girl which debuted 1.8 million viewers.  

ITV2 is a growing power in the U.K. television market, and a second home for many American shows looking to find an American audience.  The channel already shows popular U.S. niche fare such as Entourage and Supernatural, shows with small but strong audiences on their home channels that enjoy expanded audiences through the Internet and on DVD.