MR BATES VS THE POST OFFICE BECOMES ITV's BIGGEST DRAMA IN OVER A DECADE

Mr Bates vs. the Post Office is ITV’s biggest new drama in over a decade, even beating the launch of Downton Abbey in 2010.

The ITV Studios and Little Gem series has now averaged 9.8m viewers across its four episodes, including 7 day viewing across all devices plus pre-TX viewing. 

Including post-7 day viewing, the first three episodes have now all been watched by over 10.6m viewers, with the launch currently averaging 10.9m after ten days of catch up. 

The series, including the documentary, has had 16.6m streams so far on ITVX. It is the biggest drama across all channels since Line of Duty series 6 on BBC One in 2021.

It is the biggest new drama across all channels since Bodyguard on BBC One in 2018. And it is ITV's biggest drama since Broadchurch in 2017. The four episodes are the most watched programmes on any channel so far this year. 

Toby Jones plays Alan Bates while Monica Dolan, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Alex Jennings, Ian Hart, Lia Williams, Will Mellor, Clare Calbraith, Shaun Dooley, Amit Shah, Lesley Nicol, Adam James and Katherine Kelly are also in the cast.

Between 2000 and 2013, the Post Office held thousands of its own sub postmasters and postmistresses liable for financial discrepancies thrown up by Horizon, its hugely expensive but unreliable computerised accounting system.

Despite warnings that the system was flawed, the Post Office relentlessly pursued the sub postmasters and postmistresses, telling many of them that they were the only ones having problems with Horizon.

Of those affected by the faulty IT system, 736 were prosecuted and hundreds more lost livelihoods, homes and life savings because they paid back money that the Post Office claimed was missing.

Mr Bates Vs The Post Office is available to stream on ITVX now.