TV Overnights: Emmerdale beats EastEnders – Sharon takes it badly
Thursday evening saw the soap war heat up, as the unspoken rule of head-to head avoidance, was once again ignored in light of the football.
For a substantial 15 minute period, the beginning of last night’s EastEnders clashed with the tail end of an hour long Emmerdale, with unexpected results.
The rural serenity of village life continued to decay beyond recognition in Emmerdale (ITV) at 6:45pm, as viewers were treated to a double episode revolving around Cameron’s love of exhuming rotting corpses.
The village’s (very) bad boy was in a spot of bother when he realised Declan planned to develop the area where murdered farmhand Alex sleeps with the fishes. 5.8 million viewers (a 32% share) tuned in for the early airing and to see if Cameron was finally in over his head.
More shocking than the act of unearthing old friends was the fact that the smaller-than-usual turnout actually resulted in the day’s biggest audience. Viewers did fall dramatically in the final 15 minutes, as the Walford soap kicked off on the other side but on average, the 60 minute carnival of drama attracted 464,000 more viewers.
Which didn’t bode well for poor old EastEnders (BBC One, 7:30pm). Traditionally, the London soap beats it’s Yorkshire rival by a comfortable amount but has always suffered when there’s an actual clash. Perhaps teatime viewers were more attracted to the sight of a jittery murderer than watching Sharon and Phil force themselves to be happy and smile.
The happy times were indeed rolling in Walford, as old flames Sharon and Phil decided to stop hiding and share their love with the world. As well as the world not being ready for that particular bombshell, Sharon herself was struggling and decided to celebrate by washing down a near-lethal cocktail of wine and pain killers.
5.3 million viewers watched as Sharon lay unconscious on the bathroom floor – willing on the sweet release of death no doubt. As well as going up against the last quarter of Emmerdale
The rest of ITV’s evening schedule was taken up with the latest UEFA Europa League Football (7:45pm) live from Stamford Bridge. The game between Chelsea and Swiss team, FC Basel, kicked off at 8:05pm with an average audience of 3.7 million viewers and a 17% share stayed tuned for the entire 2.5 hour running time.
The excitement reached fever pitch in the 45th minute as the games only four goals were netted over the next fifteen minutes. The audience peaked to 4.3 million during this time, resulting in a 20% share and a 3-1 victory for Chelsea.
After building excitement levels for eight long weeks now, enthusiastic viewers were finally brought to a frenzied climax, as MasterChef: The Final Three (BBC One, 9pm) finally got on with it and picked a winner, whittling it down to The Final One.
5.6 million viewers watched, as Natalie turned up her cockney factor to 11 and stole the prize from right under her still competitors’ noses. The drawn out finale (which was officially in its third hour last night) brought in a 24% share and easily secured the 9pm slot for the channel.
Over in the prime time slot on Channel 4 was a harsh look at the real world ground level finances, in the super depressing The Repo Man (9pm). Following in the recent tradition of ‘why bother writing something when we can just film someone doing their banal job’, Channel 4 invited us to follow Sean James and his motley crew as they went about their business.
If taken as a cautionary tale about the evils of gullible consumerism then it seemed fairly excusable, but as schadenfreude entertainment it was all a bit wrong. Nevertheless, Channel 4 bagged their biggest hit of the day as 1.7 million viewers went along for the rise, securing a 7% 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.