Despite a very unfair mauling by critics, Tom Daley's celebrity diving show Splash! held up well in the ratings on Saturday night. It had 5.41m viewers (5.68m last week) - peaking at 6.23m (6.35m). In todays TV landscape these figures are great; its no Strictly, but it is a solid Saturday night hit, with a very good audience retention between episodes one & two. It's also popular with kids and those hard to reach 16-24 year olds, which will please ITV very much.
The show itself is good, watchable fun. Tom Daley is an engaging and likable screen presence. It's format is similar to the BBC's Let's Dance for comic relief - a different bunch of celebrities perform each week, the top two go through to the semi final. Some have complained about the padding and length of the show, but its worth noting that Splash! manages to do performances, voting, results and the awesomely named "splash off" - all in a single 90 minute show. The X Factor would gain a lot from such brevity.
However there are a couple of lessons that people should learn from Splash, Twitter is not an accurate guide to audience figures or attitudes, and just because the newspapers want to knock down someone like Tom Daley, it doesn't necessarily mean the viewing public will take part.
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