{"id":578163,"date":"2026-08-01T02:19:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T02:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/578163\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T02:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T02:19:12","slug":"diane-morgan-and-sue-johnstons-ann-droid-is-officially-a-ratings-hit-for-the-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/578163\/","title":{"rendered":"Diane Morgan and Sue Johnston’s Ann Droid is officially a ratings hit for the BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ann Droid, the new BBC comedy starring Diane Morgan and Sue Johnston, is officially a ratings hit for the broadcaster. Written by Morgan and Sarah Kendall, the six-part series follows a grieving widow (Johnston) and her second-hand care robot (Morgan). <\/p>\n

The description reads: “Ann Droid is a comedy about Sue, a grieving widow and Linda her outdated care robot who gets things very wrong and causes chaos while also teaching Sue how to love life again.”<\/p>\n

Since its premiere on 17 July<\/a>, when the entire box set was made available on BBC iPlayer, the new comedy has proved popular with viewers<\/a>, becoming a ratings smash for the BBC. <\/p>\n

\"diane<\/p>\n

BBC<\/p>\n

Related: Best streaming services UK 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

According to Broadcast<\/a>, the first episode attracted 4 million viewers over its first seven days, including 1.9 million live viewers on BBC One, with the remainder watching on catch-up. <\/p>\n

That puts it ahead of this year’s BBC comedy premieres, including the second series launch of Amandaland, which amassed 3.4 million views, and the debut of Can You Keep a Secret?, which drew an audience of 3.5 million.<\/p>\n

Ann Droid is also only marginally behind the season one premiere of Amandaland in 2025, which attracted 4.4 million viewers in its first week.<\/p>\n

The show is also second on BBC iPlayer’s Most Popular chart<\/a>, two weeks after the full series was released. <\/p>\n

Speaking about Ann Droid in a press release, Morgan said she got the idea after reading a newspaper story that said they were “rolling out” robots in Japan. <\/p>\n

She added: “I told Pippa, my producer, and we started laughing about it. It was also inspired by the time in lockdown when I decided to send my mum a tablet so she could do online shopping – she reacted like I’d sent her a nail bomb.”<\/p>\n

\"diane<\/p>\n

BBC<\/p>\n

Related: 5 incredibly addictive shows to watch after the BBC’s “absolutely superb” hit Ann Droid<\/a><\/p>\n

Asked about the touching and poignant moments in the series, Morgan said they didn’t set out to make a moving show, but it evolved that way.<\/p>\n

“That sort of accidentally happened,” she explained. “The more we wrote the story and realised it was about grief and looking after elderly parents, it started to become more poignant.”<\/p>\n

She continued: “And then when Sue was doing it, it started to have heart, which was incredible because that’s not what we set out to do. We thought it would just be a silly comedy about a slightly rubbish robot.”<\/p>\n

Ann Droid is streaming now on BBC iPlayer.<\/p>\n

\"Lettermark\"<\/p>\n

Reporter, Digital Spy<\/p>\n

Harriet is a freelance news writer specialising in TV<\/a> and movies<\/a> at Digital Spy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A horror enthusiast, she joined Digital Spy after working on her own horror website, reviewing films and focusing largely on feminism in the genre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In her spare time, Harriet paints and produces mixed-media art. She graduated from the University of Kingston with a BA in fine art, where she specialised in painting. She also has an MA in journalism from Birkbeck University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ann Droid, the new BBC comedy starring Diane Morgan and Sue Johnston, is officially a ratings hit for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[131124,1105,243824,1107,93,61,60,184510,1135,243823,223989,282],"class_list":["post-578163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-collection-latest-news","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-200c284e-86d1-411e-b952-23c04edd8b00","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-gb","tag-shorttitle-diane-morgans-ann-droid-is-officially-a-bbc-ratings-hit","tag-sponsored-false","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}