TV Viewing Summary W/E 16/03/97

A good week for ITV on the drama front, with the final episode of Reckless watched by 11.95 million viewers, and the one off return of Hercule Poirot achieving an audience of 11.18 million. The return of Stars in Their Eyes seems to have laid waste to the slipping success of BBC1’s Saturday night drama Crime Traveller. This week Michael French’s time travelling exploits were only watched by 8.88 million viewers – its lowest figure by far since the series began. It would seem that a sizeable proportion of the TV nation (9.66 million viewers this time) would actually rather watch second-rate cabaret, and put up with Matthew Kelly. Still, Noel’s little trip to New York managed to recapture a few viewers previously struggling in a no-mans land between the lesser of two evils, and pushed the House Party’s audience figure up to 10.35 million.

There’s been a lot of speculation in the press recently on the subject of how Coronation Street has gone off the boil. Dorothy Hobson in the Telegraph recently spent a whole page on the matter, she sees Coronation Street‘s plot problems in the context of “lust, lingerie and shotguns”. Well, the MacDonalds life has indeed become a little skew-whiff to what we expect from the Street, and there is a continual stream of departures from some of its most crucial characters. Bet Gilroy, Reg Holdsworth, Raquel, and in the next couple of weeks Derek Wilton. Whilst their exits may not always be down to twists in the plot, there does seem to be a change in the general direction and flow of the programme at times.

In maintaining a true to life aspect to the show Coronation Street has always tried hard to reflect the comedy experienced in everyday lives. In fact over the years the show has often bordered on situation comedy in itself, the four above mentioned characters all great contributors to this at various stages. The rather grim, and to be honest sometimes clinically depressing residents of Albert Square have attempted, at times, to reach this level, but it never quite works. This pays tribute to the strength of the cast in Coronation Street as well as those writing the plot. The point that many seem to be making at present is that this is what Coronation Street needs to concentrate upon, doing what it does best, and what it knows it does best. The recent Liz MacDonald plot involving gangsters, robbery, and shotguns being fired in the Street was more akin to the ‘tough social realism’ we would expect from Albert Square, not just a couple of doors down from dear old Emily Bishop.

Whilst the fourth episode on a Sunday may not be doing as well as the weekday shows, on average Coronation Street is just about holding on to its traditional lead over Eastenders. This week however the average figure over four nights for the Street was 15.2 million viewers, with Eastenders clocking up 15.81 million. This may give a clue to the script writers as to the popularity of the new storylines. The main lesson that needs to be learnt seems to be this: one cannot replace strong characters with strong hard hitting storylines, and expect the established audience not to bat an eyelid. The popularity of soap operas is as strong as ever, the success of Emmerdale this year bears witness to this, but it’s people that audiences grow attached to and not short term plot twists. Stop killing off the characters and introducing events into the Street which are way over the top, or indeed below its worth (the recent Des Barnes parachute jump for example). The first wise move would be to get Jack and Vera Duckworth out of running the pub and give them some freedom to enter into a decent plot line once again.

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