ITV’s The Great Fire burns up the competition
Thursday night saw ITV launch a new four-part historical drama, with the first episode of The Great Fire (9pm) warming up viewers’ autumnal screens and resulting in a prime time hit.
The period drama, starring the grieving dad from Broadchurch as a disgruntled baker who sparked off the cataclysmic London event, spent some time setting up characters and a plot before laying waste to the creaky wooden city.
An audience of 4.5 million viewers tuned in to see the baker race to save his sister-in-law (Utopia and Game of Thrones‘ Rose Leslie) from his health and safety mishap, with the first part easily securing the 9pm slot with a 22% share.
The Great Fire‘s greatest enemy (apart from logic and pacing) was Crimewatch (9pm) over on BBC One, with Kirsty Young’s latest set of grim appeals the closest show to ITV’s tale of dramatic combustion.
3.2 million viewers watched as Young was joined by protocol droid Matthew Amroliwala and the crime-solving rugby star Martin Bayfield, resulting in a 15% share for BBC One.
On BBC Two, the acclaimed drama of Peaky Blinders (9pm) continued with its solid second series as Cillian Murphy’s Tommy and his crew of street thugs adverted their eyes from Birmingham and advanced upon the shiny metropolis of London.
Despite all the praise heaped upon the period organised crime drama, the latest run of Peaky Blinders hasn’t exactly run away with the nation’s TV audience, with just 1.6 million viewers tuning in to see Tom Hardy play a Camden bad boy, netting an 8% share.
Over on Channel 4 there was the penultimate episode of Educating the East End (9pm), a show that failed to provide that breakthrough moment that its Yorkshire progenitor crucially nailed last year. 1.2 million viewers watched as exhausted staff tried to help students who were beyond help, resulting in a 6% share.
At the same time, an audience of 606,000 viewers tuned into Channel 5 for the third and final part of peculiar documentary No Foreigners Here – 100% British (9pm), an odd propaganda piece whose purpose seemed slightly confused. A 3% share watched people from all ethnic backgrounds fruitfully live their lives in a Manchester suburb.
Over on BBC Three, the Corporation was slipping into its old-fashioned, slightly condescending public service tone with (secretly educational) ‘yuff’ Don’t Drop the Baby (9pm) – because apparently young parents need to be told such things these day. An audience of 263,000 people watched as new parents attempted not to drop their baby.
Earlier at 8pm, Anne Robinson and her purveyors of consumer outrage were back on BBC One with the 34th series of Watchdog. Episode one saw Robinson and her reactionary tabloid friends, Matt Allwright and Chris Hollins, address viewers as if they were quite simple and went off on one about those tricksy mobile phone companies. 3.2 million viewers (a 15% share) joined in.
The proceedings over on BBC Two were much more relaxed as Mary and Paul had some chill out time in the white tents of dreams in The Great British Bake Off Masterclass (8pm). The channel’s biggest audience of the day watched as the baking duo put their pummelling fists where their mouths are and attempted all the show stoppers from the current series, netting over 2 million viewers and a 10% share.
The first of a double Emmerdale (ITV) got the tea time soaps under way at 7pm, as the violent Yorkshire soap celebrated its 7000th episode by showing Charity Dingle still trapped in a metal box. 6.5 million viewers tuned in for the milestone event, followed by 6.2 million an hour later at 8pm.
Squished in between was EastEnders (7:30pm) over on BBC One, with newcomer Elaine Peacock doing her best ‘Walford matriarch’ while behind the bar of the Queen Vic. Thursday’s biggest audience watched as Linda Carter’s mum swooped in to help her mysteriously troubled daughter, with the difficult storyline netting 6.6 million viewers and a 33% 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.
To get all the latest MediaTel Newsline updates follow us on Twitter.