ITV nets 9pm slot with latest twee crime drama Grantchester
Monday night saw ITV unleash a brand new twee regional detective series upon the TV schedule, with 9pm seeing fans of light-hearted murders descend upon Grantchester.
It really doesn’t get much quainter than the commercial broadcaster’s new tale of a vicar and a copper who join forces to solve dainty homicides in the picturesque setting of the Cambridgeshire village. Taking a break from all that ‘extreme’ fishing on Channel 5, Robson Green played a hardened burnt out detective (you know the type) with the easy-to-remember name of Geordie.
A prime time audience of 5.2 million viewers watched as the gritty DI teamed up with a congenial hunky vicar (played by Happy Valley‘s unhinged James Norton) to solve crimes while standing in front of Heritage Trust vistas.
An audience share of 24% joined the duo as they looked into the apparent suicide of a solicitor, hoping desperately to fill those Morse/Lewis/Endeavour-shaped holes in people’s lives, while successfully securing the 9pm slot for ITV.
The modern face of the law was looking a lot less photogenic over on Channel 4 as the second episode of 24 Hours in Police Custody (9pm) showed just exactly how far from glamorous keeping the law really is.
Changing the pace after last week’s intense look at one particular suspect, the second trip to the Bedfordshire cop shop looked at two cases of domestic issues, with an audience of 1.7 million viewers and an 8% share seeing how toxic relationships suck up so much police time.
At the same time, BBC Two was trying something new with The Kitchen (9pm) an observational documentary billed as ‘a foodie version of Gogglebox‘ so you know exactly how rubbish it is.
Attempting to catch another broadcaster’s lightening in a bottle, the show invites viewers into various family kitchens around the country and… that’s about it. 931,000 viewers and a 4% share tuned in to see the Barry-Powers family from Wales enjoy some nice spaghetti.
Over on BBC One, the ailing New Tricks (9pm) continued despite having lost some confidence due to an increasingly shifting cast. Last night’s case saw attractive fresh-faced female boss Tamzin Outhwaite and her team of considerably older, weathered and craggy-souled men attempt to solve a cold case involving a chess club.
4.8 million viewers (a 22% share) tuned in to see how this week’s inventive crime would be solved (good old middle aged intuition, usually), proving that while the show isn’t stretching out its glory days, it can still bring in a solid audience week after week.
Much later in the night, general woman-botherer and Vine ‘star’ Dapper Laughs continued to prove why some things in life should really be contained to six-second outbursts. Dapper Laughs: On the Pull (10:30pm) netted just 167,000 viewers and a 1% share for ITV2.
Earlier, Emmerdale (ITV, 7pm) was watched by 6.4 million teatime viewers and a 32% share.
At 8pm on BBC One, the eventful day of Sharon and Phil’s wedding continued as EastEnders delved into some pretty dark territory. An audience of just over 7 million viewers watched some tough scenes as Dean Wicks raped secret half-sister-in-law Linda Carter.
The shocking scenes, which the writers have promised will have some far-reaching consequences, secured a 32% share for BBC One.
But still, it was Coronation Street (ITV) that won the hearts of the nation’s viewers, despite absolutely nothing interesting happening on the cobbles. 7.6 million viewers watched at 7:30pm as Liz McDonald lied to her new boyfriend in order to see her ex-husband in prison, resulting in a 32% share.
Viewers fell to 7.1 million at 8:30pm as Liz met up with criminal mastermind Jim McDonald, as he continued to blackmail her into visiting, translating to a 32% 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.
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