Game of Thrones brings 629,000 live viewers to Sky Atlantic
Last night Game of Thrones (Sky Atlantic, 9pm) burst back onto UK screens in the usual cacophony of gore, intrigue and bare bum cheeks.
After the traumatic events of the third series, viewers would have been forgiven for returning to Westeros with a certain sense of trepidation, but the opening episode of series four spent more time setting up the pieces on the board than traumatising dedicated fans.
Two Swords saw the dastardly House Lannister prepare for the upcoming marriage of lil’ tyrant King Joffrey – and it doesn’t take a master of foreshadowing to know that weddings never usually go as planned on this turbulent show.
In the end though – and despite all the media attention and hype on Twitter – Sky Atlantic’s reach could only go so far, with just 629,000 viewers tuning in for the slightly extended episode.
Although there had been a simulcast with the US at 2am on Monday morning, surprisingly this is a slightly lower audience than Game of Thrones‘ series three opening episode, Valar Dohaeris, which pulled in 658,000 viewers in April 2013. Despite there being 10.5 million Sky homes in the UK, the inescapably prevalent show is TV’s most pirated programme.
Yesterday’s audience translated to a paltry 0.3% share but managed to generate 41,121 tweets, translating to 65 tweets to every 1,000 viewers.
Things were slightly less tempestuous over on ITV as it debuted its new gritty two-part drama, Undeniable (9pm). The psychological thriller saw Claire Goose star as a woman who possibly just spotted her mother’s killer, 23 years later.
An impressive audience of 5.9 million viewers tuned in to fill The Widower-shaped hole in their lives, with the first part seeing young mother Jane Philips wrestle with her demons while wondering how to bring the respected medic to justice. But this being one of those twisty-turny sanity-question affairs, Jane could be making it all up (some people just like the bad kind of attention).
Undeniable‘s impressive debut not only took in a prime time audience share of 26% but also walked away with the biggest audience in its time slot.
Meanwhile, BBC One tried to tempt viewers over to its side with another brand new show – The Treasure Hunters (9pm). On paper, it sounds as exciting as a real-life Tomb Raide, as the beeb’s very own Lara Croft, Countryfile‘s Ellie Harrison, searched the globe in order to find some shiny trinkets.
In reality, however, it was like watching a Countryfile presenter take an amazing holiday at your very own expense. While 2.8 million viewers (a 12% share) went along for the journey, it wasn’t enough to fend off ITV’s recent renaissance in psychological drama.
Over on BBC Two, Sandi Toksvig was taking a look at recession-proof businesses in a new four part series, Business Boomers (9pm). 1.5 million viewers all had an ‘oh yeaahh’ moment as Sandi detailed the rise of coffee chain shops during the worst financial crisis the UK has ever faced.
The anguish and horror of One Born Every Minute (9pm) continued on Channel 4, with the latest hour of nerve-shredding fun pulling in 1.8 million viewers and an 8% share.
A little earlier, sandwiched between Coronation Street, was sandwich-filler nonsense I Never Knew That About Britain (ITV, 8pm).
Not that you’d want to either, probably. Coming across as a smarmier episode of Blue Peter, the team of super-enthused presenters darted about the country, marvelling in awe at pretty pedestrian stuff. And just because it was stuffed in between the Weatherfield action, a respectable 2.9 million joined the tour.
At 8:30pm on BBC Two, Mary Berry breezed through the final episode of her very own series as she sprinkled a glimmer of light and hope across the nation by focusing on that all-important summer lunch.
The sixth and last part of Mary Berry Cooks secured an audience of 2.7 million viewers and an 11% share, down slightly from the first episode’s audience of 3.2 million.
Earlier in the evening, Emmerdale (ITV, 7pm) was watched by 6.5 million viewers and a 33% share, while EastEnders (BBC One, 8pm) bettered that with 7.2 million viewers and a 31% share.
But it was the double helping of Coronation Street that brought in the night’s two biggest audiences. The opening episode at 7:30pm locked in 8.4 million viewers, while the ongoing silliness of Peter Barlow’s love life attracted 7.8 million viewers and a 33% share at 8:30pm.
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.