Sherlock’s mysterious resurrection nets 9.2m for BBC One
After a wait of exactly two years, last night impatient fans of Steven Moffat’s Sherlock (BBC One, 9pm) were treated to not one, but 13 possible solutions to the mystery of January 2012’s The Reichenbach Fall.
Fans familiar with writer and creator Moffat’s knack for secrecy and misdirection should know that answers never come easy, with the famous detective’s return on New Year’s Day proving once again to be a source of discontent on the internet.
Amateur sleuths from all over the country took to Twitter to discount the many possible explanations that were on offer as to how Sherlock survived his suicide leap from the roof of St Bart’s Hospital. Throughout Wednesday night’s 1 hour and 25 minute running time, fans vented their delight/rage after being toyed with for such a long time.
Not only was The Empty Hearse the most tweeted about show of the day but generated a peak of 7,744 tweets per mintute.
9.2 million viewers tuned in to see Dr John Watson angrily discover that his bessie mate had indeed been alive the entire time, leading to some fun scenes of Sherlock getting beaten to a bloody pulp in order to relieve viewers’ frustration.
Now that Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman and (possibly) Una Stubbs are certified big-time Hollywood legends, the opening episode of Sherlock‘s third series had no problem securing 2014’s biggest audience so far. An audience share of 34% meant that the adventures of Holmes and Watson should continue for some time to come, star interest allowing.
Meanwhile, ITV rolled out the culmination of its recent Harry Potter-thon with the final film in the series taking up the chunk of the commercial broadcaster’s prime time arsenal.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (ITV, 8pm) saw the young wizard finally grow a pair to face-off against his melty-faced arch enemy Lord Voldemort in a lightsabre magic wand battle, netting 4.4 million viewers and a 17% share.
Earlier on in the day, safe family favourites were netting respectable returns for BBC One. Obligatory croon-along, The Sound of Music (2:15pm) brought in 2.6 million viewers, while Kung Fu Panda 2 bettered that at 5:05pm with 3.4 million viewers.
Surprisingly, Gnomeo & Juliet – the frugally budgeted animated film based on Shakespeare’s classic yarn – somehow managed to bag 4.2 million at 6:45pm.
ITV decided to play it safer still, with undeniable classic Uncle Buck luring in 1.6 million viewers at 1:45pm. This was followed up by two hours of ITV staff blabbering on in an over-animated fashion about their favourite Hogwarts scene in 50 Greatest Harry Potter Moments (3:40pm).
The clip show – perfect to watch right before you decide to dedicate another two and a half hours of your life to the final chapter – celebrated a fairly decent return on investment with 1.6 million viewers tuning in to see just what exactly was Will Young’s fondest wizard-related memory.
While the schedules were still littered with festive films and seasonal specials, the New Year brought a sense of normality to the main broadcaster’s soap battle after Emmerdale (ITV) broke with tradition and proved somewhat popular throughout 2013.
The rural soap was first out of the trap yesterday at 7pm, with the first visit of the year to the Yorkshire Dales managing to interest 6.5 million viewers and a 26% share.
Up next was EastEnders (7:30pm) over on BBC One, with the soap beating its rivals to bring us the first disastrous wedding of 2014. An impressive 7.3 million viewers watched as new owner of the Queen Vic and all-round ‘ard man Danny Dyer sabotaged his daughter’s wedding day in a typically unsubtle manner for the soap.
The breath of fresh air currently floating around Walford helped secure a share of 28% for the channel.
To reflect its performance in 2013, Coronation Street (ITV, 8pm) swooped in late in the day to snatch the soap crown right out of EastEnders‘ hands.
8 million viewers were drawn in to the latest emotional mind games between marriage-enthusiast Peter Barlow and drama-magnet Tina McIntyre. Elsewhere Hayley Cropper decided to bring everyone down from the New Year’s celebrations by visiting the Rovers ‘one last time’, well and truly milking every drop of her exit storyline and resulting in a 31% share.
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.