TV Overnights: The Apprentice leads 9pm slot with 6m viewers and a dose of cringe
Last night saw the latest series of overblown Lord Sugar PR piece, The Apprentice (BBC One, 9pm), showing no signs of slowing down.
As Wednesday’s episode proved, the formula can remain virtually untouched, with producers simply pressing the repeat button on their ideas box and the audience will still show up to cheer on their pantomime villains.
The sixth episode of the ninth series saw Evolve and Endeavour tasked with entertaining city types for a day with a measly budget of £5,000. How much cocaine and prostitutes can that buy exactly?
6 million viewers watched as the usual format played out – the confidence of the buzzword-filled first twenty minutes fell by the wayside and sheer unadulterated panic set in. A 26% share meant that the Away Day episode was the second most popular show of the day and walked away with the 9pm slot.
Meanwhile, over on ITV, pandering comedy/drama Love and Marriage – a half-hearted swansong to put upon women everywhere – got off to a pretty decent start with 4.6 million viewers. A 20% share tuned in to watch Alison Steadman channel some Michael Jackson and ‘make that change’.
At the same time on Channel 4, things were just getting weird. 9pm saw the channel kick off a 24 hour multimedia extravaganza, detailing the lives of seven people who partook in to Normandy Landings. Twitter, the interweb and all manner of modern things will be used to compliment the show over the next day, detailing events in real time.
D-Day: As It Happens brought in 864,000 viewers (a 4% share), with the social media element aiming to help the audience grow in time for tonight’s conclusion.
Earlier, Anne Robinson and her purveyors of outrage pointed their giant investigative magnifying glass at those evil insurance companies. The sixth episode of the one millionth series of Watchdog (8pm) pulled the curtain back on the disreputable world of insurance.
Did you know that even though insurance companies take your money each month you’re not guaranteed a million pound pay out whenever you wish?
Anne and her squad of blundering personal carers certainly didn’t. 3.8 million viewers (a 19% share) tuned in for 60 minutes of mock horror as the team turned the dial all the way up to tabloid sensationalism.
The consumer rights show had to contend with something a bit showier over on ITV, as All Star Mr & Mrs (8pm) refused to just go away. The quiz show – in which jobbing ‘personalities’ drag their other halves into the limelight for a desperate bit of exposure – saw a washed up member of boyband Five, Will Mellnor (who looks like a washed up member of a boyband Five) and the legendary Dempsey and Makepeace pop up.
The grin-and-bear-it-for-the-sake-of-the-mortgage fun and games was watched by 3.6 million viewers and 18% share.
Earlier in the evening, it was time for ITV’s soaps to shine as the once-quaint rural show Emmerdale (9pm) continued its slow but eventual metamorphosis into The Sopranos. Last night’s fun saw out of control youngster Debbie Dingle burn bridges as she dealt with the fall out of shopping evil Hobbit Robbie to the cops.
5.8 million viewers watched as Debbie scratched Robbie and her mother Charity off her list of super best friends, bringing in a 35% share to ITV.
Straight afterwards there was more confusing parental drama on Coronation Street as wee baby Jake’s day went from bad to worse. Having incompetent and immature parents squabbling over your incubator is one thing, but undergoing dramatic surgery with a 50/50 chance of survival is a bit too much for a Wednesday.
The latest theatrical twist saw surrogate mother Tina once again enter the emotional fray – just to complicate things a little further. 7.3 million viewers tuned in to see Tina’s attachment to her payload become even more solid. Uh oh, I wonder where this is leading to?
Tina’s sudden sense of ownership over Izzy and Gary’s baby, which any conscious viewer saw coming a number of months ago, pulled in a 38% share and was the most watched show of the day.
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.