Second trip to Channel 4’s Fargo remains strong with 1.4m
This past weekend saw the industrious dream machine that is ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent (7pm) regain some dignity with a slight popularity boost, after the second episode witnessed a 31% week on week fall in viewers.
Only one week on from the début of series eight – which featured a ratings-friendly salsa-ing pensioner and brought in 10.5 million viewers – the second episode saw the audience plummet by a massive 3.3 million people – no doubt worrying the powers that be.
It’s safe to assume that if the usually dependable ratings and headline-grabbing juggernaut was to fail there is no Plan B for the commercial broadcaster. Fortunately, lucky episode number three saw a return to form for the Saturday night variety show as a group of scarlet-clad young ladies attempted to give Irish dancing a little bit of ‘edge’.
9.2 million viewers from around the country tuned in to watch the 75 minute show, resulting in a 43% share and the biggest audience of the entire weekend.
At the same time on BBC One, Pointless Celebrities (7pm) netted 3.3 million viewers, with The National Lottery: In It to Win (7:50pm) following straight afterwards with 3.6 million viewers.
Casualty came in next at 8:40pm and secured the prime time slot with a standard audience of 4.7 million viewers and a 23% share. 9:30pm brought a new episode of inoffensive panel show The Guess List, with Rob Brydon and his chummy celebrity mates helping win 3.5 million viewers for the channel.
Back over on ITV, pandering pat-on-the-back-for-old-people quiz show Amazing Greys (8:15pm) was back for an exciting third episode, with hosts Angela Rippon and Paddy McGuinness struggling to light any fireworks with their special brand of damp spark of functional chemistry.
3.3 million people tuned in to see the age-divided teams go head-to-head in an exciting round of general interest, netting a 16% share.
Meanwhile, Channel 4 dedicated their late evening schedule to big budget spectacular Avatar (8:15pm) – a film for cinephiles that enjoy both the Smurfs franchise and 1992’s FernGully: The Last Rainforest but only have time for just one film. 1.1 million viewers watched as Sam Worthington caught a bad case of Pandora fever, netting a 6% share.
Sunday’s evening viewing activity was slightly more spread out, with the usual batch of calming Sunday afternoon programming balancing out the serious drama to come. But try as they did, it was the unadulterated rush of a new episode of Countryfile (7pm) that brought in Sunday’s biggest congregation.
An audience of 6.7 million people tuned in to see Sunday’s perma-smiled golden couple, Matt Baker and Ellie Harrison, celebrate the unsullied joy of Yorkshire, while that dodgy Tom Heap fella waded knee deep in controversy as he explored the possibility of eating abandoned horses. The northern rural festivities translated to a 33% share for BBC One.
Straight afterwards, Antiques Roadshow (BBC One, 8pm) gave buzzing viewers further value for their license fee as Fiona Bruce and her caravan of experts pulled up in Wales to get their grubby hands on some precious family heirlooms. 5.3 million viewers tuned in for the inevitable disappointment faced by the majority of participants, resulting in a 23% share.
Over on ITV, the aged anarchy of Off Their Rockers (7:30pm) continued to perform well, with 3.3 million viewers (a 17% share) tuning in for the latest slice of musty mischief.
This left it to ITV’s biggest player of the night as Brenda Blethyn grabbed her tatty old hat and her comedy magnifying glass for a fourth series of the well-received northern detective romp, Vera (8pm).
The two hour opening episode saw the detective chief inspector find herself in a suspiciously secretive Northumberland seaside town after discovering an expired corpse on Newcastle’s metro. An audience of 5.8 million viewers tuned in for the two hour opening episode, resulting in a 25% share.
At 9pm, BBC One rolled out the plastic sheets as it aired the latest episode of period war drama The Crimson Field. The tale of volunteer nurses on the frontlines of the First World War continued to perform strongly, with 4.9 million viewers watching the action unfold, resulting in a 21% share.
BBC Two offered viewers the chance to escape to ye olden dayes when everything was simple, correct and very quiet. The multiple award winning silent French film The Artist (9pm) dazzled 994,000 viewers with its earnest wide smile and back flipping pooch.
Over on Channel 4, Lester Nygaard’s (Martin Freeman) world continued to close in around him as an idealistic young cop started to poke around the recent deaths in the sweet little Minnesota town featured in Fargo (9pm).
It seems only after one week the audience is gripped; last week’s shocking opening episode brought in 1.6 million people with last night’s second instalment only falling to 1.4 million viewers and a 6% share.
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.