Corrie takes top spot while EastEnders continues to struggle
Monday night saw Channel 4 return to the Royal Marines Commando School (9pm) for a third week, a documentary in the vein of One Born Every Minute and The Fried Chicken Shop.
The doc is less fly-on-the-wall TV and more in the tricked-out-HD-camera-rig-on-the-wall genre of observational television that’s all the rage these days.
Less intrusive than a traditional camera crew, the Big Brother style of surveillance has allowed for some shocking real-life prime time scenes in recent years, with both maternity and more recently emergency wards (24 Hours in A&E) all getting a look in.
Because it seems no corner of modern life is sacred enough not to be broadcast to the nation, the inside look at the trials of wannabe marines debuted with 2.1 million viewers a couple of weeks ago, falling slightly to 1.8 million for the second episode.
Last night’s hour of elite training focused on another suspiciously TV-ready character, a man who simply had to overcome his self-doubt to become the person he dreamed of being. So far, so Educating Yorkshire.
An audience of just under 2 million viewers provided Channel 4 with its biggest audience of the day, resulting in a 9% share.
But it was the slightly more dynamic production of the Commonwealth Games 2014 (BBC One, 7pm) that secured the 9pm slot, with live coverage of swimming, the decathlon and boxing helping the three hour show peak in the final hour.
An average audience of 4.1 million viewers (a 20% share) tuned in for the whole event, but peaked at 4.9 million viewers at 9:45pm as Adam Gemili took silver for England in the Men’s 100m race.
Things were a lot more subdued over on BBC Two as the innocent victims of war were given a voice in Children of Syria (9pm). The bleak hour of telly spent six months with a variety of Syrian youngsters, documenting their experiences and views of the civil war, taking 537,000 viewers and a 3% share.
Over on ITV, the chemistry-free coupling of Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell were haphazardly stitching relatives back together instead of tearing them apart on Long Lost Family (9pm). The fourth series of the hit show continues to thrill audiences with its Surprise Surprise/ Who Do You Think You Are? mash up, with last night’s play for viewers tears netting 4 million viewers and a 19% share.
At the same time Channel 5 offered up the horror of Bringing Up Baby (9pm), a horrible show which invited viewers to point and judge at awful parenting.
The show examined ‘the growing trend for parents to kit out their toddlers in glamorous outfits, from crystal-covered dummies and frills to hairpieces, make-up and spray tans’, pretending such an epidemic exists outside of the realms of outrage TV and was watched by 1.1 million viewers and a 5% share.
Earlier in the day, Emmerdale (ITV) secured the day’s third biggest audience at 7pm, with 5.3 million viewers and a 30% share tuning in to see the Barton’s troubles continue.
Straight afterwards it was time to catch up with Coronation Street‘s latest hot and heavy relationship as octogenarian Rita Sullivan and estranged husband Dennis Tanner reignited their mojo. The first episode at 7:30pm was the day’s biggest hit, netting 6.4 million viewers and a 32% share.
The 8:30pm trip came in at second place, with cupid’s arrow being redirected to Number 8 as Gail and Les Dennis got it on in the garden. Somehow just over 6 million viewers made it through these harrowing scenes, resulting in a 28% share.
But once again there was bad news for EastEnders (8pm) over on BBC Two.
An audience of 4.8 million left the London soap in fifth place overall, with a share of 23% tuning in to see Carol make a shocking discovery (the ‘back from the dead’ kind).
While the station move might confuse some viewers – and perhaps the relative ease and availability of the iPlayer is to partly blame for the drop in live viewing – there is no obvious excuse for the sharp drop of love for Walford this summer, with many claiming 2014 has brought the soap right back on track.
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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