TV Overnights: YouTube sensation fails to translate to TV success
It seemed that no matter how big the audience was for the debut of The Midnight Beast (E4, 10pm) it would never live up to the hype of having 50 million views on their YouTube channel. The ‘quirky’ comedy/musical trio have been winning online fans for a few years now and as a result E4 commissioned a sitcom based around their attempts to break into the big time, all in the now familiar and safe Flight of the Concords mode.
The opening episode, which saw the band play a disastrous gig and featured the video for I Kicked a Shark in The Face, attracted 281,000 viewers, a 1% audience share. This was one of the lowest audiences for the channel’s primetime output with The Big Bang Theory (8pm) and 2 Broke Girls (9pm) attracting 618,000 and 529,000 viewers respectively.
EastEnders (BBC One, 7:30pm) witnessed a return to form last night (in terms of audience, not plotting) managing to pull back the viewers who abandoned the Walford soap during the week. Thursday’s episode saw Kat do an emotional 180 suddenly, now feeling bad about her spot of extra marital rumpy pumpy with the Phantom of Albert Square. 6.5 million viewers (a 35% share) watched as pressure mounted from the mysterious spectre, interested in a second round of E20 After Dark action.
EastEnders comfortably beat Emmerdale‘s 6.2 million viewers and was up from 5.4 million viewers (a 33% share) on Wednesday. Coronation Street at 8:30pm on ITV1 was once again the nation’s most watched programme of the day, with 7 million viewers tuning in to see Sean grill Marcus about his love life.
Gloria Hunniford and her pensioner friends continued on their stroll down misery lane in the concluding part of When I Get Older (BBC One, 9pm). Journalist John Simpson stayed in a care home with dementia sufferers while Lesley Joseph met little old people who have no money. Thankfully, most of the country experienced an archetypal warm summers day yesterday, otherwise this would have been all too much. 3.7 million viewers watched the searingly honest show, up 258,000 people from the first episode on Wednesday.
Over on ITV1 at the same time was the tonally opposite Let’s Get Gold, the yin to When I get Older‘s yang. This brand new bright and happy quiz show which featured a lot of grinning from host Vernon Kay attempted to capture the Olympic spirit and beat it in to a game show format. I say ‘spirit’ as the show is in no way associated with or endorsed by the International Olympic Committee.
Contestants must impress the judges with their sporting knowledge and for some completely mental and random reason Martine McCutcheon sat along alongside Rio Ferdinand and Andrew Flintoff on the judging panel. 2.5 million viewers suffered through the exciting synergy of sportsmanship, flashing lights and total fluff, capturing a 12% audience share.
The mixed doubles and women’s semi-finals at Wimbledon 2012 didn’t garner the same kind of buzz as the men’s singles earlier in the week. The unstoppable machine that is Serena Williams took to the court twice; earlier in the day the Florida native secured her place in the final for the seventh time by defeating Russian Victoria Azarenka. The early afternoon coverage on BBC One, which went out from 1:45 to 6pm captured an average audience of 2 million viewers, peaking at 2.7 million around 4pm.
BBC Two took hold of the reins at 5:50pm and captured 1 million viewers. After a little rest Serena was back for the ladies doubles, playing with sister Venus and beating an American pair who bring to mind an 80’s funk and soul project, Kop-Jones and Spears. Round up and review show Today at Wimbledon (BBC Two, 8pm) attracted a 6% audience share with 1 million viewers.
Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks and key multi-channel stations.