The UK premiere of Torchwood: Miracle Day lured 4.83m viewers to BBC1 at 9pm last night, down 1m on the premiere of Children Of Earth in 2009. Of course, Children was a world premiere of that particular miniseries, whereas Miracle has been controversially delayed in reaching the UK after Starz aired it in the US last Friday. So it's more than likely the 1m drop-off is partly because of torrent downloads this past week, and the fact this isn't being stripped across the whole week (so the need to watch episode 1 on the day of transmission, or risk falling behind, isn't so strong.)
Over in the US last Friday, Miracle Day's world premiere attracted 819,000 viewers for Starz at 10pm and 687,000 for the 11pm repeat, resulting in a total of 1.51 million viewers. This a fraction below the premiere of Camelot (1.57m), a show that Starz cancelled after one season—but not purely because of ratings and demographics, so this doesn't mean Miracle Day's doomed, too. Anything in the 1.5m range is a big hit for a premium cable channel like Starz.
Incidentally, Channel 4's The Killing was direct competition for Torchwood in the UK last night, and the crime drama remake dropped to 1.5m viewers—losing 670,000 viewers from its two-part premiere. Some of the loss may be attributed to people giving Torchwood preference, with 311k watching The Killing an hour later on Channel 4+1. So the loss of audience for the show probably isn't that bad, when you factor in the presence of a big Thursday night rival.
