I’m a Celebrity leads a solid night for ITV
Last night brought relief to desperate jungle fans with another hour and a half of quality I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! (ITV, 9pm) action, coming after Tuesday’s compassionate football break.
Wednesday night saw Matthew Wright lose all sense of self as he was outwitted by camp genius Joey Essex for the second trial in a row, a fact which must be more unsettling than the creatures that slithering down the presenter’s ear canal.
The third episode scored its lowest audience so far this series, but it’s unlikely ITV will pull the trigger on its sweet little money maker anytime soon.
9.2 million viewers tuned in to see one fourth of saucy dance troupe Westlife step up to the plate in order to earn some quality grub for his camp mates, further twisting the knife firmly lodged into Matthew Wright’s ego. The satisfying slice of schadenfreude secured a 40% share.
Looking elsewhere it was as if the schedulers had already admitted defeat with the alternative 9pm options looking a little limp.
BBC One offered up viewers another chance to ‘enjoy’ a ‘classic’ episode of New Tricks (9pm) from 2010. The repeat from series 7 saw the maturing sleuths reopen the case of a murdered fashion designer, while Dennis Waterman’s character received one of those modern makeovers from his real life daughter Hannah, with ‘hilarious’ results.
Don’t remember the one? Your mum and dad probably do – a whopping 94% of the show’s audience of 3.3 million viewers were over the age of 34. The cold cold-case secured a 13% share for BBC One.
Over on Channel 4, it was time for another midweek bout of life, death, laughter and tears in the blood soaked halls of King’s College Hospital. This week 24 Hours in A&E (9pm) fans were entertained with genuine fevers, strokes and dementia as members of the public signed away the most intimate moments of their lives in order to help the broadcaster document every second of life in the UK.
Channel 4’s plan seems to be working for some, securing its biggest audience of the day with 1.4 million viewers tuning in for the fourth series’ second episode.
Of course, Channel 5 had much more highbrow issues on its mind as it jumped into history and on the trail of the Nazi Quest for the Holy Grail (9pm). 836,000 viewers joined the hunt for ‘the lost Aryan race’, securing a 3% share.
Perhaps the Nazi’s could have used Ben Shepard and Julia Bradbury’s Mystery Map (ITV, 8pm) a chart highlighting pointless and fictitious locations across the UK. The bizarre show – which was reminiscent of a throwaway segment on Going Live! – was one of those awful experiences where you actually feel for the presenters’ sense of shame, even though the whole mess is entirely their own fault.
The premise is simple: fill up an hour of the schedule by sending two roving reporters to traverse the great country looking into strange and interesting stories (if you were a gullible twelve year old). 3.9 million viewers watched as Ben stayed the night in a haunted hotel (spooky!) while Julia travelled to Manchester to investigate a moving statue in a museum (simply nonsense). Which must make a change from investigating a new brand of sheep dip in Countryfile, I suppose.
The terrifying premise was just overshadowed by Nigel and Adam’s Farm Kitchen (8pm) over on BBC One, which secured an audience of 4.6million viewers.
Earlier in the evening ITV’s double soap feature helped the channel take the top three places of the day. Emmerdale kick-started the drama at 7pm and my, how some things have changed in a short few weeks.
Only recently tweaked-out vet Rhona couldn’t be stopped from knocking back bottles of happy pills to keep her floating through life (and let’s not judge too harshly; it is the appropriate response to living somewhere like Emmerdale). Last night saw the clean and sober fulcrum of misery refuse to take life-saving antibiotics, with a little over 7 million viewers tuning in for the topsy turvy turn of events.
Straight afterwards, the residents of Coronation Street (ITV, 7:30pm) all breathed a sigh of relief as wee man Simon Barlow was reported missing. The second biggest audience of the day saw a panicked Tina return from the school run empty handed, bringing in 8.1 million viewers.
Unfortunately, the darling cherub was safe and well (at least as safe as he could be in the company of an angry adult with a touch of brain damage). The seriously missed opportunity secured a 37% share.
Later, Channel 4’s Gogglebox (10pm) continued to grown in popularity with 1.7 million viewers tuning in (a significant jump from the first episode’s audience of 732,000) for a catch-up with the nation’s favourite intoxicated critics.
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