The Avengers Forever: The Ratings

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Stay Tuned: The Ratings
by David Edge

The Avengers won every fight, defeated every diabolical mastermind, but could not smash the enemy that killed Kirk & Co., finished the Mission: Impossible team and ended Doctor Who. They could not beat the Public Viewing Figures.

The following is a list of the top-rated Avengers episodes for each of the years from 1961-69. It is by no means exhaustive, as it does not show how other episodes of any given year fared.

Year	Episode	Audience*	Date	Position in Chart
1961	The Deadly Air	5.1	16 Dec 61	5
1962	Dead On Course	5.8	29 Dec 62	8
1963	Death à la Carte	7.3	21 Dec 63	7
1964	Trojan Horse	7.6	8 Feb 64	9
1965	A Surfeit of H2O	7.5	20 Nov 65	6
1966	A Touch of Brimstone	8.4	19 Feb 66	4
1967	The Fear Merchants	8.0	21 Jan 67	3
1968	You'll Catch Your Death	5.5	16 Oct 68	12
1969	The Forget-Me-Knot (in repeat)	6.8	12 Jan 69	8
*Millions of viewers

The Top Nine Avengers episodes of all time based on audience figures.

1	A Touch of Brimstone (any surprise here?)
2	The Fear Merchants
3	Trojan Horse
4	A Surfeit of H2O
5	Death à la Carte
6	The Forget-Me-Knot
7	Dead On Course
8	You'll Catch Your Death
9	The Deadly Air

The New Avengers

Year	Episode	Audience	Date	Position in Chart
1976	Cat Amongst the Pigeons	7.5	19 Nov 76	8
1977	Emily	14.1	24 Nov 77	4

Source: Television’s Greatest Hits, Paul Gambaccini and Rod Taylor, Network Books UK, an imprint of BBC Books