TV Viewing Round-Up: January 2013

As if Miranda Hart wasn’t already busy enough creating havoc in her eponymous titled sitcom, this month also saw the return of her other big ratings hit Call The Midwife.

Despite the general nostalgia associated with the show, series two’s opening episode saw the East End midwives dealing with a mum-to-be trapped in an abusive relationship. This didn’t put off the viewers, as they flocked in their millions to watch old fashioned child births.

Beefing up BBC One’s already strong Sunday night line up, 20th January’s episode pulled in 10.8 million viewers. This was also the most watched programme of the month, just ahead of other rating juggernauts Miranda (10.5 million) and Mrs Brown’s Boys (9.8 million).

Sometimes in life you just want to get away from it all, a theme that features in Disney’s Up. The story of a grumpy widower who attaches thousands of balloons to his house in hope of flying away to the secret land of Paradise Falls, tugged the nation’s heartstrings this month.

Proving that there will always be value in transmitting Hollywood films during prime time on free-to-air channels, nearly 8 million viewers watched the premiere of the computer animated film on New Year’s Day.

BBC One’s travelogue-come-murder-mystery series Death in Paradise – one of the few shows where the cast and crew don’t mind having to do endless re-shoots – returned for a second series last month.

I mean, these lucky people get to go abroad for a few days’ work in a sunny Caribbean island to film some Murder She Wrote-lite shenanigans and top up their suntans.

The episode in question saw Ben Miller’s uptight police detective Richard Poole solving the murder of a plantation owner, via the usual last minute plot twist revelations Agatha Christie could do in her sleep.

Featuring a guest appearance by Stephanie ‘Sable Colby’ Beecham, the episode broadcast on 8th January pulled in an impressive 8.2 million viewers (no doubt wishing they were sunning themselves in the West Indies too).

ITV’s latest big budget drama Mr Selfridge, a sort of Downton Abbey on the high street, premièred this month on the nation’s biggest commercial station. Featuring high profile Hollywood actor Jeremy Piven, last seen swearing his way through LA as agent Ari Gold on ex-ITV2 US import Entourage.

Whilst the show hasn’t yet quite hit the heights of Julian Fellowes’ transatlantic award guzzling period piece, there was enough interest in the first episode to give ITV some ratings cheer (with 8.5 million viewers).

Elsewhere the adaptation of PG Woodhouse’s Blandings, starring Timothy Spall as the slightly less well-known Woodhouse creation Lord Emsworth, debuted with a somewhat healthy rating despite mixed reviews. For the episode aired on 13th January, the 1920s set comedy managed to attract 6.1 million viewers.

Elsewhere, Pamela Anderson’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance on Dancing on Ice reined in 8.3 million viewers, while the format changing, hour-long Lewis attracted 7.8 million people and the return of All Star Family Fortunes pulled in 6.6 million between the main performance and skate-off shows for ITV’s celebrity ice extravaganza.

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