Shetland’s brand of washed-out misery nets 5m for BBC One
Last night BBC Two brought viewers the final episode of An Hour to Save Your Life (9pm), the latest series in the ever-growing genre that churns real life traumas into edge-of-your-seat prime time entertainment.
Via the magic of dramatic editing and taking a unique angle on the life-threatening events, the past three weeks has seen the documentary focusing on the treatment of three specific injured individuals. Paying careful attention to the vital initial treatment they receive, the next sixty minutes sees how their chances of recovery plays out.
In its defence, there’s a lot to be learned from the nerve-racking hour of television (namely: never leave the safety of your own home) with the horrific events teaching the nation all about the importance of first response – so at least everyone learned something important.
The real-time thrill-ride took in an audience of 2 million viewers for its first two weeks but last night’s finale – featuring a 77 year old stroke victim – fell slightly to 1.8 million viewers and an 8% share.
Slightly happier was BBC One’s 9pm offering in which DI Jimmy Perez was hunting down more child killers on the cold and gloomy subarctic archipelago of Scotland – yes it was time to return to the happy, sunny, blissful Shetland.
The first series of the show, in which bad things continually happen against a mixed backdrop of dark blues and greys, was only two episodes long but the miserable series of events have been stretched to six for the second lot.
Last night’s concluding part of the first slaughter of the series saw po-faced DI Perez team up with an even more despondent-looking Brian Cox (the other one) for some infanticide closure.
Last week’s opening episode was watched by 5.2 million people, with last night’s audience falling slightly to a still victorious 4.9 million viewers. That and a 22% share ensured that the bleak slice of damp Scottish noir was the most watched show in the 9pm slot.
Over on Channel 4, Jamie Oliver’s lovely jubbly BFF Jimmy Doherty disarmed viewers with his cheeky-chappy manner, despite his rather bleak message. Yes, viewers, Channel 4’s very own pig farmer was there to tell us how humanity is basically doomed, but in his usual really lovely way.
Food Prices: The Shocking Truth (9pm) built a worrying picture of a global population explosion, dodgy politics, Mother Earth’s deadly vengeance and infertile lands, while Jimmy got to go on a bit of a worldwide jolly. 1.8 million viewers attempted to stay calm throughout, helping the show secure an 8% share – the channel’s biggest of the day.
A little earlier, 8pm brought the latest tantalising round of The Great British Sewing Bee (8pm) as 2.8 million viewers (a 12% share) tried to not fall off the edge of their seats. Holby City‘s (8pm) sturdy and loyal fan base on BBC One brought in 4.7 million viewers and a 21% share.
Over on Channel 4, Kirsty Allsop continued to sell lies to desperate couples who were searching for the elusive perfect domestic set-up, with Kistie’s Best of Both Worlds capturing an audience of 1.3 million viewers and a 6% share.
ITV handed away its evening schedule to the latest Live UEFA Champions League (7:30pm) in which Chelsea faced off against Turkish club Galatasaray. 4.2 million viewers (a 19% share) tuned in for all of the 2.5 hours of coverage, with the audience peaking at 5.4 million viewers soon after the 7:45pm kick off.
Later at 10pm, Dr Christian was back as the Undercover Doctor on Channel 4, despite his unique mug rendering any clandestine reporting almost impossible. This time, the attention-friendly professional attempted to catch viewers interest with Cure Me, I’m Gay which saw Dr Christian try out sickening aversion techniques and rehabilitation centres in the UK and the US.
1.5 million viewers tuned in to find out it wasn’t so long ago that this ‘therapy’ was available on the NHS, resulting in a 10% share. While he may need to be cured of a few personality traits, his sexuality is certainly not one of them.
The show was the most tweeted about television programme yesterday, generating a massive 30,719 tweets and hitting a peak of 620 peaks per minute.
Much earlier in the day Emmerdale (ITV, 7pm) bagged 6.1 million viewers and a 30% share before EastEnders (BBC One, 7:30pm) came along straight afterwards to steal the biggest audience of the day.
Tuesday’s trip to E20 was one of them court-based specials in which viewers hoped against hope that a million loose plot threads would finally and conveniently be tied up. 7.1 million viewers watched as Kat Slater-Moon took to the stand to send an innocent Alice Branning to the slammer, only to be interrupted by an on-the-lam Stacey Slater. Still following?
A 33% audience share certainly were, helping the long-running soap take Tuesday’s top spot.
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.