Royal Variety Performance tops Twitter and Monday’s viewing
While yesterday’s prime time offerings may have been devoid of degrading jungle antics, ITV managed to fill that I’m a Celebrity… shaped hole in viewers’ lives (and their schedules) with a feature-length celebrity congregation in a vain attempt to get a much-needed smile on the face of the Queen.
The festival of lighter-than-hydrogen assortment of entertainment that makes up The Royal Variety Performance 2014 kicked off at 7:30pm on the commercial broadcaster and aimed to keep viewers gripped with a mixture of easy listening show tunes and family friendly comedy all the way through to 10:15pm.
An average audience share of 29% tuned in to watch Shirley Bassey roll out on to the London Palladium stage for the 1000th time, while new kids on the block like Ed Sheeran, Bette Midler and Ellie Goulding were also given their chance to ‘shine’.
In total, 6.5 million viewers tuned in for the two hour 45 minute affair, with the very thought of Simply Red, McBusted and the latest winners of Britain’s Got Talent, Collabro, finally sharing the same stage, helping secure Monday’s biggest audience. The smorgasbord of sneer also managed to generate a lot of mentions on Twitter.
Meanwhile, all other 9pm shows were struggling to keep up with ITV’s theatrical onslaught; not even the alleged continuing renaissance of BBC One’s flagship soap EastEnders could hang on to all its usual viewers.
8pm saw the first visit of the week to sunny Walford, which showed off Martin Fowler’s brand spanking new face as he made the epic trip to London’s East End all the way from mythical Dagenham.
5.6 million viewers tuned in to see Martin’s return to the Square force Sonia into making a big decision about their future together, securing BBC One’s biggest hit of the day with a 23% share.
Afterwards, Panorama (BBC One, 8:30pm) offered more bleak alternatives to the variety show with a challenging episode. Domestic Abuse: Caught on Camera had a much more considered approach than the Channel 5 title suggested, with the harrowing footage pulling in 2.9 million viewers and a 13% share.
Afterwards, Richard Hammond was back to staring excitedly at the heavens while bombastic dramatic music once again flooded the senses in the second episode of the thrilling Wild Weather with Richard Hammond (BBC One, 9pm).
Down from last week’s 2.8 million viewers, an audience of 2.5 million tuned in for the second of three episode, with an 11% share watching as Hammond searched for the ‘secrets’ of weather.
On Channel 4 Jamie Oliver offered up an hour of Christmas cheer at 8pm while cooking up all kinds of festive concoctions. The hour-long Jamie’s Cracking Christmas secured the channel’s biggest hit of the day with 1.4 million viewers and a 6% share.
At 9pm was the third part of Skint‘s second run, still focusing on the down-trodden ex-fishing community of Grimsby. After falling slightly last week, yesterday’s slice of poverty was watched 1.1 million viewers (a 5% share), the exact same audience as the opening episode.
Over on BBC Two, 8pm brought an hour of mind boggling queries, starting off with University Challenge. Paxman’s latest slice of charm offensive secured 2.6 million viewers while the completely random nonsense of Victoria Coren Mitchell’s Only Connect (8:30pm) confused over 2 million viewers.
9pm brought the sad end to the tale of contrived elitist journalists and the ‘selective’ readership of Tatler on the latest forced workplace documentary. The final Posh People: Inside Tatler (9pm) managed to recapture last week’s audience of 1.3 million viewers but still fell below the opening episode’s audience of 1.5 million adults.
At the same time on Channel 5, the not-Batman show Gotham (9pm) introduced a new enemy in the form of a not-yet Two-Face, district attorney Harvey Dent. An audience of 889,000 people (a 4% share) continued to watch, just for the hell of it.
Earlier on ITV, Emmerdale kicked off the broadcaster’s successful night with the soap securing Monday’s second biggest audience at 7pm.
An audience of 5.9 million viewers watched as little village murderer, Belle Dingle, had another awful day in the UK’s most cursed village, netting a 28% share.
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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