TV Overnights: Barrage of soap action leads Monday evening’s viewing
The UK’s soaps ruled the airwaves on Monday as a fresh batch of over the top drama grabbed last night’s top four spots.
Emmerdale (ITV) kicked of the week’s torrent of emotional mayhem at 7pm as walking ball of aggression Declan Macey once again proved himself to be a very bad fit for small town rural life.
Ending yet another heated conversation with his right hook, Declan has long been a fan of expressing his emotions through the ancient medium of punching. The brawly goings on attracted 6.3 million viewers and a 33% share.
Next up was the first of two visits to Coronation Street (ITV, 7:30pm) and things in Weatherfield weren’t much calmer. Yesterday, the sexual chemistry between dusty mainstays Norris and Emily reached fever pitch, mirroring the muggy undercurrents flowing throughout the country.
Elsewhere, maternal emotional mess Tina was still reeling from her Judgment of Solomon storyline and decided to calm her mood by spending some time with David Platt. The first episode netted the day’s biggest audience with 8 million viewers tuning in, resulting in a 39% share.
Round two of the claustrophobic drama at 8:30pm was slightly less popular with 7.6 million viewers and a 34% share. Snuggled between the northern double bill was a greased up Adrian Edmondson as he toured around The Dales (ITV, 8pm). The seventh of 12 episodes was watched by 3.2 million viewers.
Up against the genteel country walking was harsh urban talking on EastEnders (BBC One, 8pm). The first post-Tanya episode saw Max Branning behave marginally more pathetic than usual as he mourned the departure of his ex-ex wife, leaving him stuck with his rubbish ex-wife.
The ‘gritty realism’ was watched by 6.9 million viewers and pulled in a 32% share.
In the all-important 9pm slot, BBC One once again served up a lukewarm repeat of New Tricks. Unsurprisingly, the episode from 2010 failed to attract the biggest audience at the time but did manage 3.2 million viewers and a 14% share.
Over on Channel 4 there was another hour of a covert yet intense PR campaign masquerading as a television show in Undercover Boss (9pm). Last night’s episode saw the CEO of DHL secure an hour of prime time television promoting his company. An impressive task, even if it is only Channel 4. The epic advert secured 1.6 million viewers and a 7% share.
In the end, the big 9pm winner belonged to ITV as Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell made more families cry – supporting the age old standard that real tears equals a TV victory. The latest episode of Long Lost Family saw the winning combination of her from Big Brother and that bloke from the 90s swill down their guest’s tears in a giant gold goblet of prime time success.
Last night’s tales of tragedy and reunions were watched by 5 million people and a 22% share.
Later on E4, a handful of lucky scamps from Skins returned for a final run of three two-parter episodes, each story focusing on a particular character. Precocious mare Effy was front and centre in Skins Fire (10pm) as we caught up with the broken, world weary 21 year old.
Somehow the chemical dependent youngster found herself working in the big bad financial world of the city with the Fonejacker playing her boss. A small audience of 668,000 viewers tuned in to see Effy realising that being a ‘grown up’ is fairly rubbish but the show managed to garner the most tweets 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.
The Social TV Analytics report is a daily leaderboard displaying the latest social TV analytics Twitter data from SecondSync. The table shows the top UK TV shows as they are mentioned on Twitter, which MediaTel has correlated with the BARB overnight programme ratings for those shows (only viewable to BARB subscribers).