TV Viewing Round-Up: August 2013

The return to the fold of original judge Sharon Osbourne has had a positive effect on the ratings for the tenth series of long running karaoke show The X Factor.

Debuting later in the schedules than last year’s somewhat lacklustre series, the opening episode saw just under 10 million viewers watch the latest procession of wannabes and no-hopers perform in front the celebrity judges.

This was up on last year’s series debut, which kicked off with 9.1 million viewers during the middle of August.

The suspense around who was going to be the next person to play Doctor Who, (re)generated big viewing figures for BBC One.

Host Zoe Ball had the unenviable task of dragging out what was basically a five-minute announcement into a half an hour programme.

Luckily this didn’t bore the viewers to tears; 6.4 million of whom stuck through appearances by Liza Tarbuck, Rufus Hound and Bernard Cribbins.

Then at 7.20pm came the news on Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor that Peter Capaldi would be the twelfth person to play the Time Lord (sadly not in full Malcolm Tucker mode).

BBC One also scored success with mystery drama What Remains starring David Threlfall, rustling up 6.1 million viewers for its opening episode. Which seems to prove that the general public can’t get enough of ‘missing child police dramas’.

Auntie Beeb got further ratings cheer from long running cookery programme Celebrity Masterchef and its latest sitcom offering Big School, with the former reaching 5.2 million viewers and the latter attracting just under 5.3 million.

Elsewhere the revival of the oldest fixture in the international calendar saw over 6.1 million football fans tune into ITV’s coverage of England vs Scotland, which the Sassanachs narrowly won 3-2.

In what looks like a serious case of bad timing, ITV’s revival of 80’s game show Through the Keyhole launched on the same day as original host Sir David Frost died of a heart attack. Everyone’s a critic, I suppose.

ITV’s latest attempt to prove that Keith Lemon can work outside of the confines of ITV2 after the relative failures of Lemon Aid and Sing if You Can seems to be a successful one, with just under 5.9 million people tuning in.

It’s pretty rare that BBC Two has a programme featured in the overall top programme list for any given month – rarer still when it has two. However, with the return of everybody’s favourite baking show The Great British Bake Off and petrol heads’ favourite Top Gear, the wait was over.

The opening episode of series four cooked up 6.7 million viewers, enough to take third spot on this month’s chart, while the last edition of the 20th series of Jeremy Clarkson’s mid-life crisis show was watched by 5.5 million people.

Despite repeated showings on the channel, ITV can still rely on JK Rowling’s most famous literary creation to bring in sizeable audiences.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire‘s fifth showing since 2008 on free-to-air television narrowly crept into this month’s chart, with 4.7 million Pottheads lapping up ‘the one with the Triwizard Tournament’.

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