Trigger’s final TV appearance on Law & Order: UK nets 3.6m
Although it feels like the last series just wrapped up, last night brought back the never-ending cycle of culinary judgement that is MasterChef (BBC One, 9pm).
The schedule mainstay returned last night with a tenth series of the revised format but very little had changed; both John Torode and Gregg Wallace’s looming personalities and interestingly-shaped heads were back to watch over proceedings while the six contestants peppered their meals with exotic spices as if their lives depended on it.
Like the contestants, dedicated viewers might also find the next eight weeks a bit of a relentless challenge. MasterChef‘s usually-hectic schedule of three servings per week is perhaps more suited to casual viewers who prefer to dip in and snack than binge on Wallace’s overpowering one liners.
The last series of the easy schedule-filler (BBC’s version of Big Brother, perhaps?) attracted 4.2 million viewers this time last year. Naturally, not soon after the last pot had been cleaned, it was time for Celebrity MasterChef to clog the schedules, attracting an audience of 4.7 million viewers in July 2013.
Yesterday’s series ten debut didn’t manage to beat either of 2013’s opening episodes but it was close. 4.3 million viewers tuned in to see the six hopefuls whittled down to two, securing a 19% share, generating 12,724 tweets and winning the biggest audience in its timeslot.
Over on ITV, the eighth series of recycled American waste product, Law & Order: UK, (9pm) continued to deal with proper edgy real-life issues in a frantic attempt to appear somewhat relevant to its audience.
No doubt upcycled from a 90s original series episode, last night saw Brooks and Hawkins uncover the body of a dead policeman a car at the bottom of the Thames that was somehow connected to the Brixton riots – so someone’s doing a bang-up job at localisation, then.
3.6 million viewers watched as the late Only Fools and Horses’ Roger Lloyd-Pack made one of his last on-screen appearances, with the homespun version of a very iconic American series bringing in a prime time share of 16% to ITV.
Over on Channel 4, former Pet Rescue presenter, Mark Evans, brought viewers a proposition that was as dodgy as they come. Dead Famous DNA (9pm) saw Mark scour the globe to get his mits on dead celebrity DNA, so he could finally prove Hitler had an ‘evil gene’, discover if Elvis was predisposed to die and much more nonsense besides.
808,000 viewers watched the first of three episodes which was stretching the credibility too far already, resulting in a 4% share.
Naturally, BBC Two was on hand to offer viewers something a little more cerebral – it involved books and history and everything. The Greatest Knight: William the Marshal (9pm) was an hour-long love letter to a super solider from the Middle Ages, pulling in 1.2 million viewers and a 5% share.
An hour earlier, ITV gifted viewers something much worse that the blood-soaked horror of the Crusades. Yes, that’s right – the unmitigated horror of Big Star’s Little Star (8pm) was back! The series, which sees soulless smiledroid, Stephen Mulhern, interrogate scared children of semi-famous people for the entertainment of the masses.
As if it’s not bad enough that their parents took on a life of endless self-promotion, ITV kindly helps them drag their kids into their unpleasant marketing exercise. 4 million people watched as a number of former athletes used their own children to further their brand, resulting in a 19% share and the biggest audience in the 8pm slot.
Elsewhere, Angela Rippon was poking her nose around dirty bed sheets in Holiday Hit Squad (BBC One, 8pm), with 3.5 million viewers tuning in for the adventure. Lambing Live (8pm) was watched by 2 million viewers on BBC Two while Channel 4’s Secret Eaters pulled in 926,000 viewers.
ITV held the sole rights to last night’s ‘quality’ soaps with Emmerdale (7pm) bagging 6.3 million viewers and a 32% share. Straight afterwards, the latest drama from Coronation Street took Wednesday’s top spot as all the characters looked that bit smaller in their brand new, large-as-life sets.
7.4 million viewers (a 35% share) watched as Owen and Gary continued to make unwise decisions (which is the overriding rule of soap characters, apparently) while the teatime family fun also saw Carla make an appointment at the abortion clinic.
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.