Line of Duty’s series two finale up 70% on opening episode
Wednesday night’s prime time selection revealed a nation obsessed with law enforcement as both BBC channels and ITV’s big draws were off the justice-serving variety.
On BBC One, the lovely Kirsty Young brought the country some unlovely news with the bi-monthly round-up of murders, misdemeanours and general unpleasant events that captures the attention of TV watching curtain-twitches everywhere.
In October last year, Crimewatch (9pm) pulled in its biggest audience of recent times, with 6.7 million viewers tuning in for the update and re-appeal for information regarding the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Last night saw 3.7 million viewers tune in to see boy-without-a-soul Matthew Amroliwala and former rugby union player Martin Bayfield once again join Kirsty on hosting duties, resulting in a 16% share.
While this was significantly lower than last year’s attention-grabbing special, the audience was still big enough to secure the 9pm slot. The latest round of appeals helped the show to be the second most tweeted about programme of the day, generating 20,0007 tweets.
To put that into context, The Only Way is Essex (ITV2, 10pm) generated the most tweets, with 52,574. An audience of 618,000 viewers meant that for every 1,000 people watching there was an whopping 85 tweets.
After a well-received first series, Line of Duty (BBC Two, 9pm) returned six weeks ago with a fresh cast and a brand spanking new conspiracy for viewers to wrap their heads around. There was even a new frosty and morally-suspect protagonist in the shape of former Spooks star Keeley Hawes.
Revolving around a serious incident where four police officers lost their lives, Line of Duty has spent the last few weeks successfully keeping viewers on the edge of their seats, all the time guessing just what the hell was going on?
The tense thriller has kept viewers in the dark as to whether former Inspector Lindsay Denton (Hawes) was responsible or even involved in the murder of her colleagues and has been hailed by some critics as the finest drama series the BBC had produced in recent years.
The first episode of the new series was watched by 1.8 million viewers back in February. As a testament to the power of word of mouth and the BBC’s easily accessible catch up service, the audience for the final reveal jumped up to just under 3 million viewers, an impressive 70% increase.
An audience share of 7% tuned in for the rug to be pulled out from under their feet, resulting in all manner of expected reactions on Twitter (the night’s fourth most tweeted about show), with the buzz ensuring a third series.
At the same time on ITV was another version of the murky world of street justice, but the commercial broadcaster’s offering was more of the procedural, undemanding, franchised-from-the-States kind of police show.
The second episode of Law & Order: UK‘s (9pm) eighth series in only five years saw Bradley Walsh’s Brooks and his brand new sidekick, Hawkins, investigate the murder of a dodgy youth psychiatrist.
An audience of just over 3 million viewers (a 13% share) tuned in to see the new partners discover a sleeper compartment in the dead man’s office, which – especially in a police procedural show – is never, ever a good thing.
Meanwhile, Channel 4 was showing something that was almost just as criminal – a repeat of the country’s biggest selling stand-up DVD, all the way from the dawn of time. Peter Kay Live at the Bolton Albert Halls and the antiquated laughs secured the channel’s biggest audience of the day with 1.7 million viewers and a 7% share.
Earlier at 8pm, DIY: SOS: The Big Build (BBC One) beat its rivals in the time slot with 4.9 million viewers and a 23% share. Collectaholics on BBC Two secured 1.2 million, while schedule-filling clip show You Saw Them Here First (ITV) was watched by 2.8 million viewers.
There was some internal naval gazing going on at the Beeb at 10pm with the debut of spiritual sequel to Twenty Twelve, W1A (BBC Two). Slightly more smug and self-regarding than its predecessor, the mockumentery saw Hugh Bonneville’s Ian Fletcher appointed the corporation’s Head of Values.
1.6 million viewers tuned in for the meta half an hour of comedy, resulting in a 9% share.
In the end, it was ITV that claimed the midweek’s gold and silver trophies with its soapy offerings. Unchallenged due to the absence of EastEnders, Coronation Street took the top spot, pulling in 7.4 million viewers at 7:30pm, resulting in a 35% share.
Half an hour earlier, Emmerdale (7pm) brought in the day’s second biggest audience, with 6.3 million viewers catching up with the latest slice of harrowing rural life.
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.