Thanks D.M.N. Those are excellent statistics and really revealing.
I'm sure the Soap forum will love them being able to map the declines to certain 'eras'.
What I notice is simply how closely the soaps track eachother. Their comparative declines over the period are within 2 percentage points, and - even more remarkably - the rises in 2003 and this year are replicated across all the soaps. The only exception is EE's small rise last year - which I suppose was aided by the end of the Tuesday clash.
I suppose weather has something to do with the correlation. The snowy Jan-Feb certainly helped this year) but there's got to be something even more than that.

What I notice is simply how closely the soaps track eachother. Their comparative declines over the period are within 2 percentage points, and - even more remarkably - the rises in 2003 and this year are replicated across all the soaps. The only exception is EE's small rise last year - which I suppose was aided by the end of the Tuesday clash.
I suppose weather has something to do with the correlation. The snowy Jan-Feb certainly helped this year) but there's got to be something even more than that.