TV Overnights: Man City v Ajax v EastEnders
Last night at 7:30pm, ITV1 once again treated us to Adrian Chiles and his reassuring face. The presenter managed to fill up 15 minutes of pre match guesswork with the help of Roy Keane and Gareth Southgate before the Live UEFA Champions League action kicked off at 7:45pm, live from the Etihad Stadium in Manchester.
The Group D game saw Manchester City and Ajax go head to head, both sides eager to scrap their way out of the bottom of the pile. The Dutch team were straight in with the knife – Nigel de Jong wasted no time netting the first goal of the match 10 minutes in, with the second following seven minutes later.
Yaya Touré attempted to balance things out in Man City’s favour, scoring in the 22nd minute. There followed a long lull of failed efforts, finally broken by City’s Sergio Agüero in the 74th minute. An average audience of 4 million viewers (a 17% share) tuned in for the entire coverage which ended in a 2-2 draw, dashing City’s Champions League dreams.
The audience peaked to 5.1 million viewers in the final 15 minutes, in the hope that either team had any tricks up their sleeves.
Immediately beforehand on the same channel was Emmerdale (ITV1, 7pm) – the latest trip to the quaint village saw Declan and Katie return from their honeymoon. You’d need a break too if 8.8 million people were watching your nuptials live across the nation.
The return saw Megan reunited with new sister-in-law Katie for the first time since Megan slammed Katie’s head into her own wedding cake. It’s the done thing in soap land weddings, apparently. Emmerdale, which has been performing well in the aftermath of the live shenanigans, saw the audience drop below 7 million. The latest Macey family power play pulled in 6.7 million viewers, resulting in a 31% share.
Over on BBC One at 7:30pm EastEnders pretty much survived unscathed, despite going up against the match. Tuesday night saw Sharon and Phil on a mission to fool the social services in to allowing them to foster baby Lexi, in a vain effort to keep her in the family. Luckily the social services didn’t have access to their character biography pages on Wikipedia, or they wouldn’t have even got an appointment.
What did pop up to scupper the fake couple’s plans was the little matter of Phil’s Heather-slaying son, Ben, who is currently locked in a padded room somewhere off-set. 7.4 million viewers watched as the couple were actually taken by surprise when the matter was brought up. A 33% share resulted in EastEnders securing the biggest audience of the day for BBC One.
Despite the running time of the Champion’s League game, BBC One secured the highest audience share from 7:30pm onwards. Holby City (or HOLBY CI+Y if you’re proper cool) followed EastEnders and hung on to 4.6 million viewers, resulting in a 19% share for the on-going medical drama.
8pm saw builder George Clarke wander around some satisfactory functional spaces in George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces on Channel 4. Less Grand Designs, more of a ‘let’s just stick French doors in the wall of our caravan’ vibe, the show attracted Channel 4’s biggest audience of the day. 1.9 million viewers (an 8% share) watched as the sour faced designer cut costs by attempting to sleep his family of five in a space big enough for a double bed.
They’re a modern lot, these olden day people. Just as Downton Abbey tolerated ladies with grand ideas of careers, The Paradise went a few steps further. Not only did main character Denise get a job in the eponymous department store, last week saw her quit. The man she was in love with (the owner, naturally) committed to a loveless marriage as he announced his engagement to some society tramp.
Last night, Denise the Piece stomped along the high street of the mysterious Northern town, rallying smaller shop and stall owners to unite against The Man. Hell hath no fury like a woman determined to set up some kind of futuristic ‘co-operative‘. A consistent 4.6 million viewers ( a 20% share) tuned in for the penultimate episode, eager to see if Mr. Tesco will shatter Denise’s heart. For wholesale prices.
Later on BBC Two, Newsnight (10:30pm) audience’s fought off their US election fatigue, with an extra 20,000 viewers tuning in to watch exhaustive analysis of exit booth polls. Jeremy Paxman and his Washington guests pulled in 795,000 people and a 6% share.
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.