Todd’s return to Coronation Street attracts 9.2m to ITV
Monday night saw the soap battle heat up slightly with all storylines firing on full cylinders, vying desperately for the attention of inconsistent fans.
Emmerdale got the evening off to a strong start at 7pm on ITV as the search was on for a missing child in the village. 7.7 million viewers – usually enough to grab the top spot – tuned in to be disappointed to find Jacob safe and well, translating to a 36% share.
Next up was the first visit to Coronation Street (ITV, 7:30pm) as Todd Grimshaw finally returned from his six year tenure in London as his panto money must have finally run out. Monday’s biggest audience watched as friends and family were horrified to discover that living down south turned Todd into a right little nightmare, bringing in an impressive 9.2 million viewers and a 40% share.
Over on BBC One, EastEnders (8pm) had a rare moment of celebration as Janine hung professional patsy Alice Branning out to dry. The intense episode, which saw both survivors of last Friday’s violent showdown being interviewed by police, created enough buzz to push Emmerdale into fourth place.
7.8 million viewers watched as Janine framed Alice for the murder of Michael Moon, bringing the general level of deception in the soap to new levels while securing a 32% share.
The return to Weatherfield at 8:30pm saw Eileen confront her wayward son and was watched by 8.3 million viewers and took a 34% share.
Later in the 9pm slot, both BBC channels offered up a twisted concoction of horrific scenes and appalling characters as a eugenics-obsessed murder in Ripper Street (BBC One) fought off the ultimate horror of Gareth Malone and his manically happy friends in The Choir: Sing While You Work (BBC Two).
The second episode of Ripper Street‘s second series saw the team of Victorian detectives once again seek the help of consulting-sidekick The Elephant Man as a maniac hunted down London’s more unusual-looking characters.
The gas-lit investigation saw its audience fall from last week’s 5 million viewers to 4.3 million. Despite this slight drop in popularity Matthew Macfadyen and Jerome Flynn’s latest adventure through foggy backstreets secured the 9pm slot and attracted an audience share of 19%.
Meanwhile on BBC Two, wannabe Time Lord Gareth Malone was back with a second series of competitive signing. The first episode of The Choir: Sing While You Work saw the eternally young vocal master bother the staff of P&O Ferries, who clearly thought a bit of PR was better than employees actually doing their jobs. The warm up episode managed an impressive 2.7 million viewsers and a 12% share.
Over on ITV, Hermione Norris was having a complete middle class ‘mare in a repeat of psychological thriller A Mother’s Son (9pm). It would seem that long before Broadchurch hit our screens viewers couldn’t quench their thirst for slayed-schoolgirl dramas, with the two-parter from 2012 detailing a mother’s perfect Waitrose-sponsored life being shattered when she suspects her children are connected to a local girl’s murder.
3.2 million people watched as Norris snivelled, whimpered and despaired her way around her amazing house as she fought with her uncertainties – this audience was down from the 4.5 million viewers that caught up with the tale of doubt the first time around.
In true ITV Drama fashion the cast was a (relatively) high profile smorgasbord of familiar faces. Viewers were treated to not one, but two former Spooks, a former Doctor Who and even a Doc Martin for good measure, helping secure a 14% share.
Instead of messing about with all this poncey scripted nonsense, Channel 4 gave viewers an opportunity to get right up in death’s face in the latest delightful episode of 999: What’ Your Emergency? After all, why bother writing a distressing scene when it’s cheaper to just point and click?
Last night’s thrill ride with the emergency services brought viewers into the homes of patients who were over 65, just to make the hour of television that little bit more traumatic than usual. Channel 4’s biggest audience of the day – 1.5 million viewers – tuned in to watch the noble professionals, resulting in a 7% share.
Straight up afterwards was the return of Manchester Medlock University’s finest scholars for a second year of boozing and hijinks in the third series of Fresh Meat (Channel 4, 10pm). Just under 1 million viewers watched as Vod, Howard and the rest of the household welcomed in a new lodger, securing a 6% share.
This is a slightly more impressive figure than it seems as the opening episode has been available on 4oD for a week – the comedy has traditionally attracted a much bigger audience on-demand, generating 710 tweets per minute.
Elsewhere, Huey Morgan’s cringe inducing behaviour on Never Mind the Buzzcocks (BBC Two, 10pm) was watched by 1.3 million viewers and produced over 8,000 tweets.
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).
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.