TV Overnights: Holy trinity of Amy, Patsy and Billy fail to defeat the might of Coronation Street
There must have been a surplus of nerves going around the corridors of the British Broadcasting Corporation last night. No, they weren’t rerunning the Jubilee Pageant coverage. Nor were they inviting Russell Brand back on air, armed with a phonebook of pensioner’s telephone numbers. Something much, much hazardous was afoot: EastEnders returned to the dark and dangerous realms of live television.
February 19th 2010, a date which will live in infamy, brought us the unprecedented disaster that was EastEnders Live. But someone at the Beeb wanted to put right, what once went wrong. Last night we received a double bounty of E20 goodness, with the first episode going out at 8pm and netting 7.6 million viewers, the highest of the two.
Thankfully, only seven minutes of the second episode at 9pm was broadcast live, narrowing the chance for a repeat of the multitude of mishaps that we witnessed two years ago.
7.3 million eyes were on Walford last night as the Olympic Torch passed through the turbulent borough, safely in the clutches of Billy Mitchell. The other live portion of the action consisted of his granddaughter Lola giving birth in the chip shop in front of as many members of the Square as could be fit in to the doorway as possible. Which is standard for Mockneys. EastEnders Kind of Live pulled in a 31% audience share.
This was followed immediately by what, yet again, promised to be the final trip to the absurdly decadent residents of Holland Park. The return of Patsy and Eddie was marred by the same problem facing the latter years of The Simpsons – the whole story was lazily based around celebrity appearances, much like the preceding two episodes of this final 20th anniversary run. Absolutely Fabulous (BBC One, 9pm) still had some strength in it though; 5.6 million viewers tuned in to see the dynamic duo lamenting their healthier years in the face of the Olympics.
Yesterday’s other monumental event was the first anniversary of the death of troubled singer Amy Winehouse. To mark the occasion BBC4 broadcast Arena: Amy Winehouse – The Day She Came To Dingle (10pm), comprising of material mostly filmed in 2006.
The hour special was a startling reminder of just how strikingly sharp the Camden crooner’s delivery was in her prime and helped cleanse any images of the messiness that came with the ensuing years.
Recorded as part of the fifth series of RTÉ’s acclaimed Other Voices, the show featured a set played by the tragic singer in the intimate setting of St James’ Church in the small Irish fishing village in the West of Ireland.
Between interviews with locals who were there that night and Amy herself, the set showcased songs from the singer’s second album Back to Black. Amy’s trip down An Daingean way (the anglicised ‘Dingle’ has fallen out of favour in recent years) attracted an audience of 442,000 viewers and a 2.4% audience share.
Despite the cornucopia of events offered up by the BBC, it was Coronation Street (ITV) that was awarded the biggest audience of Tuesday night. Finally – finally – Sunita and Karl’s shadowy activities were brought in to the light. After months of being as subtle as a tram crashing through the viaduct, Karl finally found the power to stop the affair.
Last night, after allowing Sunita to stay behind in the Rovers after closing, Weatherfield’s scarlet woman once again broke through Karl’s defences with her expert moves. Just in time for his wife Stella to walk through the door. The first episode at 7:30pm attracted a 38% audience share and 7.5 million viewers.
8:30pm dealt with the fallout of the discovery, which unfortunately featured Dev Alahan’s special brand of stomach churning emoting. Expect plenty more of this in the days and weeks to follow. Unusually, the second episode of the night actually netted a bigger audience than the first. The properly shameful discovery attracted an audience of 7.8 million but had a smaller audience share (34%).
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.