TV Overnights: BBC wins prime time with comfort combination of Bake Off and New Tricks
With the news that The Great British Bake Off (BBC Two, 8pm) is to be poached by BBC One next series, the pressure is on for the little show to keep up its stellar performance.
Last night brought the third week of treacherous recipes from Mark Berry’s personal dark tome, with nothing but dreaded desserts on the menu.
While the remaining 11 contestants may have buckled under the pressure of being in the presence of Mel and Sue for another week, dedicated TV viewers put on a braver face and showed up in their usual numbers.
Dessert week brought a crushing end for not one but two fluttery baking fanatics, netting 5.8 million viewers in the process. Unsurprisingly this was by far BBC Two’s biggest hit of the day and Tuesday’s fourth most watched programme overall. The shock double tent eviction was watched by an astounding 27% share, with the culinary calamities easily walking away with the 8pm slot.
Over on BBC One, Holby City‘s (8pm) dedicated fanbase remained pure, resisting the temptation of baked goods on the other side. 4.8 million viewers (a 22% share) tuned in for the refreshingly dramatised medical action, something that’s becoming endangered due to the onslaught of fly-on-the-sterilised-operating-theatre-wall documentaries.
ITV decided to combat the abundant treat of cake Queen Mary Berry by allowing Adrian Charles ‘Ade’ Edmondson a chance to guide us all through adverts of ye olden times, signposting our social progress along the way. The vaguely haphazard clip show reminded viewers of some classic campaigns and managed to fill the schedule for a whole hour.
Ade in Adland‘s (ITV, 8pm) look back at marketing propaganda of yesteryear secured 1.5 million viewers and a 7% share.
The BBC once again destroyed the competition in the prestigious 9pm slot as certain demographic-magnet New Tricks took its vitamins and set off on another adventure. This week the dusty old dears were on the hunt for a killer who targeted a jogger (we all think about it sometimes) and gave a chance for new kid on the block Nicholas Lyndhurst to thaw out a bit.
A massive 7.4 million viewers tuned in for the winning banter from the alternative universe 21 Jump Street, netting a 34% share.
Over on Channel 4, Top Boy (9pm) was living a lie – in fact the show was only the 48th most popular of the day. A minuscule audience of 777,000 viewers tuned in for the third episode of the second series. The gritty council block drama brought in a 4% share.
It wasn’t all bad news though – those that did watch the show were very vocal about it in the digital stratosphere (the internet), with Top Boy generating 2,988 tweets per minutes during its time slot.
ITV stepped things up a gear with Trauma: Level One (9pm) – 1.5 million viewers watched the latest up close and personal documentary focusing on emergency medicine, named like a flashy American Jerry Bruckheimer show. Is there currently a hospital in the country not kitted out with the latest Big Brother tech?
Speaking of shows with silly tawdry titles, CSI: NY was Channel 5’s 9pm offering. The spin-off of a spin-off was watched by 1.2 million viewers and a 5% share.
Earlier on, in the realms of teatime, EastEnders (BBC One, 7:30pm) and Emmerdale (ITV, 7pm) were once again facing a smack down without the added confusion of Coronation Street.
The happy village of Emmerdale was once again in turmoil as the Mr Burns of the place, Declan Macey, put the residents’ homes up for sale. There was also some fun to be had as Rhona was having a bad time coming off her medication addiction, bringing in 6.2 million viewers to the sleepy hamlet.
But in the end it was loud mouthed cockney cousin EastEnders that stole Tuesday’s soap crown (a highly prestigious title). Scenes of Phil Mitchell and bad boy Carl getting themselves into a destructive car crash brought in 6.9 million viewers and a 36% 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.
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).