Kian’s I’m a Celebrity ‘triumph’ peaks at 11 million for ITV
This past weekend finally brought ITV’s winter ratings spectacular I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! to a close, with the reality competition ending a highly successful run in a fairly impressive fashion.
The weekend-long finale (and yet it’s still not as dragged out as rival shows) kicked off on Friday night at 9pm with 8.7million viewers tuning in to see the final five contestants get battered about by wind machines and ‘raging’ waters in the bushtucker trial. The high-concept battle for plastic stars netted Friday’s biggest audience.
Saturday’s late night edition at 9:45pm saw the audience dip to 8.4 million viewers due to other light entertainment distractions and – perhaps – the fact that at least a small percentage of die-hard fans actually have some sort of social life.
By the time the show rumbled back around on Sunday night at 9pm, viewers had brutally whittled the contestants down to three, with Kian Egan, David Emanuel and Lucy Pargeter all desperately hoping to win, possibly kicking off a brand spanking new career as guest panellists on Loose Women.
In the end, an average audience of 10.6 million viewers watched as the least irritating of the bunch – Westlife’s Kian – was crowned the big winner, destroying the weekend’s competition in the process. A 41% share helped the continuously popular show’s 13th series end on a high.
Back to Friday and BBC One’s anti-jungle arsenal was a more varied affair, consisting of two timely celebrations – one of the late Nelson Mandela’s life and the other focusing on Robbie Williams’ newly released Christmas stocking fodder.
Robbie Williams: One Night at the Palladium (8pm) saw the simple(st) one from Take That promote his new swing album with help from a bunch of Muppets including Kermit, Miss Piggy and Rufus Wainwright. An impressive 4.8 million viewers (a 22% share) watched as Robbie attempted to lock in an older demographic just in time for the holidays.
An hour later, Nelson Mandela: The Fight for Freedom (9pm) was obviously a less earnest affair than watching that woman from Emmerdale splash about in wet clothes over on the other side, securing just 2.2 million viewers.
Saturday’s schedule was a fairly tame affair, with few surprises in store for viewers. Family favourite Atlantis (BBC One, 8:15pm) brought in a standard 4.3 million viewers, while even New You’ve Been Framed (ITV, 6:45pm) made it into the top ten with 3.2 million viewers.
Strictly Come Dancing (BBC One) was the first of the night’s big entertainment spectaculars out of the trap at 7:15pm. This week’s slice of toe tapping extravagance saw the final six couples claw each other out of the way for a place in next week’s semi-finals.
10.6 million viewers watched the gloriously short hour of competitive dancing, becoming the most popular show of the day. Impressive as the audience was, in the end the figure was just 17,000 short of the weekend’s most popular show – Sunday night’s jungle finale.
Later at 8:15pm, producers of the The X Factor (ITV) once again cobbled together some random theme to keep viewers distracted from the fact they’ve seen in all before. A still-significant audience of 8.4 million viewers watched the latest round of clichés, resulting in a 36% share.
Sunday night’s offering of déjà vu saw Saturday’s schedule replicated almost exactly with the last I’m a Celebrity (9pm) taking the top spot, Strictly Come Dancing: The Results (BBC One, 7:20pm) falling to a paltry 9.4 million and The X Factor Results (ITV, 8pm) upping its game to an audience of 9 million people.
In more exciting corners of Sunday’s schedule, Countryfile (BBC One, 6:20pm) once again produced a stellar performance as John Craven discovered that technology can actually help farmers (imagine that!) while Adam Henson and Helen Skelton looked at various fields and mountains.
6.3 million viewers tuned in for the latest exciting instalment of the agricultural magazine show, netting a 28% share.
Earlier on in the day, Weatherfield fans were treated to an off-schedule hour-long episode of Coronation Street (ITV, 7pm). Despite the entire nation being unified in mutual hate for Dev Alahan, the bumbling ball of bizarre ticks was front and centre in a ‘hilarious’ storyline about fitness.
A much lower-than-usual 6.2 million viewers watched the earlier-than-usual episode, resulting in a 24% share.
Straight afterwards on BBC Two, the second series of The Paradise (8pm) ended with more tales of frilliness and empowered women. 4.1 million viewers watched to see the lowly shop girl bag the rich guy (well, that was empowering for ye olden days), securing a 16% share for the haberdashery-set romp.
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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.