4.6m tune in for Beckham’s spritual quest/World Cup advert
Monday night saw BBC One once again go down the charitable route by donating an entire hour and a half to an out-of-sorts retired footballer who needed just a little bit of public attention to keep him going.
Unfortunately, David Beckham into the Unknown (8:30pm) didn’t involve the famous face actually being shot into space or anything exciting like the title would suggest; instead viewers were delivered a slick piece of brand promotion.
The documentary saw one of the world’s most famous footballers attempt to ‘find himself’ by travelling to the edge of the Amazon rainforest with his team in tow, naturally, as it’s a widely known fact that having camera crews around actively aids spiritual development.
With the epic journey of self-discovery coincidentally kicking off in Brazil – which is apparently hosting some kind of completely unrelated low-key sporting tournament this year – Beckham busied himself by breathing the same air as normal folk, even going so far as playing football with some poors.
Not only did Victoria Beckham’s new full-time child carer keep the attention of 4.6 million viewers for its bloated running time, the documentary secured the biggest audience in the 9pm slot.
Beckham’s heady quest for some kind of enlightenment became the most tweeted about show of the day, generating 54,443 tweets during broadcast.
At the same time over on BBC Two, the Corporation was busy promoting another commercial enterprise with the second episode of dubiously-intentioned documentary A Very British Airline. Down from last week’s audience of 2.8 million, last night’s episode looked at the perils of maintaining the London to New York route and was watched by 1.9 million viewers and a 9% share.
Meanwhile over on Sky Atlantic, the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones‘ fourth series finally delivered the kind of fan service viewers have been feverishly waiting for. For the very first time the location-hopping show spent an entire episode in a particular location, with The Watchers on the Wall focusing on the show’s most epic budget-busting battle yet.
861,000 viewers tuned in for one of the most straight-played episodes all series – each one presumably thankful for the lack of shocking, soul-crushing deaths – resulting in a 4% share.
At the same time, 2.7 million viewers spent their evening relaxing to images of commuters losing it in Road Rage Britain: Caught on Camera (ITV, 9pm). The hour of fuzzy footage brought in a 13% share.
Over on Channel 4, the latest trauma in 24 Hours in A&E (9pm) secured the broadcaster’s biggest audience of the day, with 1.5 million viewers (a 7% share) tuning in for the life and death drama.
On Channel 5, Big Brother: Power Trip (9pm) continued to happen, with just over 1 million viewers tuning in to find out what exciting things a group of sixteen housebound narcissists have gotten up to. Straight afterwards, Big Brother: Power Trip: The Live Surprise (10pm) (the surprise having something to do with a ‘killer nominee’, but as of yet no one has died) pulled in another 1 million viewers and a 6% share.
As is traditional, the soaps ruled over the earlier teatime schedule, with Emmerdale (ITV, 7pm) grabbing 6 million viewers and a 34% share. Afterwards, a double bill of Coronation Street (ITV) took in 7.6 million and 6.7 million viewers at 7:30pm and 8:30pm, respectively.
Squeezed in-between was Gail & Me: 40 Years on Coronation Street (8pm) which was an actual walk down memory lane for imprisoned actress Helen Worth. 2.8 million viewers watched as ghosts from the cobbles past popped in for a bit of a natter, resulting in a 14% share.
All the reminiscing up north didn’t affect EastEnders‘ (8pm) performance on BBC One too badly (although it’s hard to keep track of the London soap’s typical audience with so many recent fluctuations).
Last night an audience of 6.5 million viewers tuned in to see the sexual tension between Tina Carter and Sonia Fowler build, despite the latter being married to oft-mentioned but never present spectre Martin Fowler. A 31% share helped secure BBC One’s biggest audience of the day.
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.
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