Hayley’s grim Monday suicide pulls in 9.4m for ITV
Monday night saw ardent and bereaved soap fans come together on ITV as a vigil was held for one of soap land’s most enduringly popular characters, as Hayley Cropper decided that she couldn’t face one more week on Coronation Street (7:30pm and 8:30pm).
After building up Hayley’s cancer storyline for many months, sweet relief finally came to the transgendered knicker stitcher last night as she shuffled off her mortal coil to descend to an annual spot in the Blackpool pantomime scene for all of eternity.
The first of last night’s double bill attracted the day’s biggest audience as Hayley dramatically came to realise that she wanted to die that day, just to add to the general desolation that is Monday. A whopping 9.4 million viewers watched the first episode at 7:30pm as husband Roy struggled with the resolution, resulting in a 40% share.
As gruelling and depressing as it was to kick off a new week with her passing, it was probably more suitable than getting rid of Hayley on a Friday – Monday audiences are mostly wrapped in a blanket of anguish anyway, so the show had an emotionally-captive audience built in.
Although it is usual for a soap double bill, it was a surprise to see the audience for the second episode at 8:30pm fall slightly – given the particulars of last night’s trip to Coronation Street.
In the end, a little over 9 million viewers watched as – after 16 years on the show – Hayley knocked back a lethal cocktail and died in her husband’s arms, resulting in a 37% share.
Viewers felt obligated to share their grief via the medium of Twitter, with second episode being the most tweeted about show of the day. During the faithful act at 8:30pm there were 126,725 tweets generated, peaking at 8,166 per minute.
Sandwiched in between the suicide plot was EastEnders (BBC One, 8pm), usually the bastion of despair, which was positively charming in comparison – all the residents of Walford had to deal with was a teenage pregnancy (which is so 1985), with not one death, thankfully.
7.7 million viewers tuned in to find out that Cindy Beale (no, not that one) was up the duff, resulting in a 31% share and the third biggest audience of the day.
A little earlier, Emmerdale‘s (ITV, 7pm) audience of 7.5 million viewers secured the fourth biggest audience of the day and a 34% share.
Meanwhile at 9pm, strong independent women were busy solving crime across BBC One and ITV as a repeat of New Tricks went head-to-head with the new series of The Bletchley Circle.
BBC One offered up an episode of mature and experienced detective work as the Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad, led by Amanda Redman, investigated the murky world of boxing. The episode of New Tricks (BBC One) from 2010 only managed to attract 2.7 million viewers and an 11% share.
While the Enid-Blyton-for-grown-ups premise of The Bletchly Circle (ITV) did fare much better it didn’t have the might to claim the 9pm slot. 3.7 million people tuned in for the second case of the second series, with the post-war black market shenanigans resulting in a 15% share.
Despite all the quality scripted drama on offer, it was Channel 4 and its love of sensationalism that won the coveted spot. Yes, even though Benefits Street (9pm) seems to have undergone a hasty re-edit and had its tone drastically changed, there has been enough tabloid outrage to ensure a healthy audience three episodes in.
4.5 million viewers – a 25% rise compared to the first episode – tuned in to see how the children fared in the impoverished environment, netting a 18% share. There seems to be a correlation between the growing sympathetic tone and viewers tuning in, although the nation still has plenty to say about the show.
The broadcast generated 55,993 tweets, with the accusations and defensive arguments hitting a peak of 1,327 tweets per minute.
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. Overnight data supplied by TRP are based on 15 minute slot averages. This may differ from tape checked figures, which are based on a programme’s actual start and end time.