Much as watchdogs moan about soap overlaod, viewers can't get enough. So is a fifthe evening in Albert Square the answer to BBC1's midweek slump in viewing figures?

NEVER mind what the good folk of Albert Square will think of Sharon and Dennis snogging in the Queen Vic. Or whether roadsweeper Gus will be caught red-handed with his brother's gun. And, quite frankly my dear, nobody gives a damn whether Nana Moon marries her old codger of a boyfriend.

The question that should be occupying the thoughts of the actors who flesh out these characters in BBC1's EastEnders is, how much extra work is coming their way? The idea of a fifth weekly visit to Albert Square has drawn ever closer thanks to what's become known in the TV industry as Black Wednesday.

An adjective like "black" is usually reserved for attaching to the date of a calamitous event such as a stock market crash or terrorist attack. For staff to dub the midweek day in such dark terms is a reflection of how disastrous that day has become for the BBC.

It was revealed this week that viewing figures slumped so low one recent Wednesday that only one in seven viewers was watching BBC1 at some point. The Beeb could manage a paltry 13.9 per cent audience share. Twice as many people were watching C4's Grand Designs as BBC1's drama Family Business, while a soccer match on Sky Sports 2 had a 17 per cent share.

No doubt schedulers would like to put this down to a blip, an isolated incident at a time when BBC has drawn ahead of ITV1 in terms of audience share. But the fact is that BBC1's Wednesday ratings are consistently poorer than the rest of the week.

A BBC spokesman claimed the strategy for that particular night was centred around specialist factual, current affairs and natural history. There were no plans to change that, with the channel intending to offer an alternative to the other stations.

Brave words, but the reason for wobbly Wednesday was pinpointed by Broadcast magazine ratings analyst Philip Revell. He put the poor ratings down to the lack of an episode of EastEnders.

Soaps not only attract huge audiences but hook viewers for the night. They're more likely to linger on the same channel for the rest of the evening rather than press the remote control and switch elsewhere.

The BBC has long resisted adding another episode of the Walford soap. Just as it tried to put off adding a third and a fourth. Market forces made it difficult to resist this quick fix for poor ratings.

"The lack of an EastEnders episode on that evening leaves BBC1's schedule more vulnerable than any other night," says Revell.

It's all very well BBC1 Controller Lorraine Heggessey ruling out more EastEnders for fear of diluting the quality of the soap. But it appears to be not a question of if but when the fifth episode is added to the schedules.

The production team and the cast may worry about the extra work, or of compromising artistic integrity by turning production into a conveyor belt with no time for rehearsal or margin for error. But somehow the programmes get made and viewers watch in their millions.

The move probably wouldn't please the watchdogs. ITV was told off last year by the now-defunct Independent Television Commission for showing too many soaps.

The report warned that soaps such as Coronation Street and Emmerdale had reached saturation point during peak time and this was "a threat to diversity".

Coronation Street added a Sunday edition to help boost ITV's weekend ratings. Now a double helping on Monday has pushed the long-running series to five episodes a week, without any perceptible fall in ratings. Much as watchdogs moan about soap overload, viewers can't get enough.

Emmerdale has been running from Monday to Friday for some time, and now a semi-permanent Sunday episode leaves only Saturday free of Emmerdale - although soap addicts can get a double fix from the omnibus editions of Coronation Street and Home And Away that day.

Saturday is otherwise soap-free. Not, I suspect, that the TV companies wouldn't mind inserting a Street or an Enders into the schedules to pep up what everyone agrees is a lacklustre night on the telly.

Ant And Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway provides the only bright spot among the lightweight programmes that have contributed to viewers finding other things to occupy themselves on a Saturday.

The BBC believes variety, or what used to be called light entertainment, is the answer. It hopes that reuniting Big Breakfast presenters Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen in a show, unimaginatively called Saturday Night With Johnny And Denise, will boost viewer interest in the spring and summer season.

Let's hope it does better than Vaughan's previous efforts under his BBC contract. This "fully interactive" experience will have the audience, both in the studio and at home, joining in the fun, games and stunts.

Graham Norton has been poached from C4 with the specific intention of developing ideas for a Saturday show.

Never fear, if these high-profile shows fail to deliver the ratings, it won't be long before a Saturday night episode of EastEnders is being discussed.