Downton Abbey’s return fails to compete with X Factor
Last night saw the long-awaited return of the aristocratic Crawley family as viewers around the country, starved of high-born scandal, flocked to their sets to feverishly welcome back Downton Abbey (ITV, 9pm).
The fifth series kicked off with a harrowing air of change sweeping across the land, with Lord Grantham fearing that the new-fangled Labour Party were out to destroy the very fabric of the nation’s favourite drama.
The series opener had a lot to live up to as September 2013 brought in a whopping 9.2 million viewers, with the finale securing 9.5 million in November. The Christmas day special, however, managed an audience of just 6.6 million.
Sunday night saw 8.1 million viewers tune in to see Broken Britain hit the country’s most famous country estate, although along with all the social anxiety there was room for yet another fancy-pants get together.
That, however – along with the fact a number of characters who have been in a state of mourning for some time now finally decided it was time to come out of bereavement (and find new love, natch) – only helped Downton‘s return to be a success.
In total, an average audience share of 37% tuned in to see the Earl of Grantham and the missus celebrate their anniversary.
In the end though, ITV’s lavish period pageantry wasn’t even the biggest hit of the day, let alone the weekend. This accolade fell to the unspeakable popular eleventh series of The X Factor (8pm), securing the top spot for both days.
Saturday saw 8.2 million viewers tune in to see the auditions in front of a live audience at Wembley Arena at 8pm, resulting in a 39% share. Surprisingly, slightly more people returned for a second day of exactly the same mash-up of karaoke and desperate bite-sized sob stories, resulting in an audience of 8.3 million.
Sunday night’s lukewarm serving of The X Factor (8pm) fun secured a 35% share and the weekend’s biggest audience.
Elsewhere, BBC One spent the weekend fighting back against the commercial rival’s sure-fire line-up. Saturday saw Doctor Who fight back at 7:30pm as the Time Lord and Clara attempted to steal some memories from a time bank (or something to that effect), bringing in 4.9 million viewers and a 24% share.
A bit earlier, Pointless Celebrities (BBC One, 6:45pm) brought in 3.9 million viewers and a 23% share, while medical drama Casualty secured 3.9 million (a 20% share) at 9:15pm.
At the same time on ITV, the bizarre re-imagining of Through the Keyhole (9:10pm) was watched by 3.8 million viewers and a 20% share.
BBC One’s defence stepped up on Sunday, taking desperate measures against Downton and The X Factor to the extent they brought back Lacey Turner for a whole series of Our Girl at 9pm.
Following on from last year’s one-off that was met with very mixed reviews and focused on an aimless young woman who joined the army. The first episode of a new series about Turner’s character as she starts a tour of Afghanistan brought in 3.9 million viewers and a 17% share.
Earlier on Antiques Roadshow (8pm) and Countryfile (7pm) took in 5.3 million and 5.2 million viewers, respectively, while Formula 1: The Singapore Grand Prix Highlights was watched by 3.7 million at 5pm.
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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