Mackenzie Crook’s Ordinary Lies nabs 9pm slot on lowest audience yet
Last night’s TV line-up witnessed the penultimate episode of BBC One’s deceit-soaked working class drama Ordinary Lies (9pm) and, even though the cautionary tale once again secured the prime time slot, this time attracted its smallest audience yet.
Kicking off a few weeks back with 4.7 million viewers, before jumping to 5.1 million for the second episode, the remaining two instalments managed to bring in 4.5 million viewers each, although the third episode was denied the biggest 9pm audience due to an England match on ITV.
Yesterday’s tale of dishonesty managed to continue the show’s mostly-triumphant trend, although there was little in the way of competition on the other side.
The story about everyday working people whose tiny little fibs get way out of hand last night focused on The Office‘s Mackenzie Crook whose distained, distant look of despair and anxious regret was perfectly suited to the tale of secret gambling problems and fraudulent claims.
Yesterday’s slice of common-folk-wot-lie action made the smallest impact yet, with just 4.4 million viewers tuning in to get not one, but two lies for the price of one, resulting in a 20% share.
Over on BBC Two, it was time for another random topical magazine show about food, just for the hell of it. Britain’s Favourite Foods – Are They Good For You? (9pm) offered up a question that, after 60 minutes of time-filling tangents and ‘experiments’, was answered with a resounding…maybe.
An impressive 2.2 million viewers and a 10% share tuned in for the consumer health thrill ride.
On Channel 4, those babies continued to fly out on the latest One Born Every Minute (9pm), with 1.4 million viewers and a 6% share tuning in for the latest round of trauma, heavy doses of painkillers and torn flesh.
Meanwhile, Channel 5 continued to pump out some more awfulness with final one-off ‘special’ of truly depressing repossession documentary Can’t Pay? We’ll Take It Away (9pm).
An audience of 1.1 million viewers tuned in to be entertained by the sight of a mother and daughter being turned out onto the street, resulting in a 5% share.
Earlier, ITV’s Tuesday evening was taken up with the latest Live UEFA Champions League (7:30pm) game live from the Vicente Calderón Stadium in Madrid.
An average audience of 3 million viewers and a 15% share watched the entire two and a half hours of coverage, with the Atletico Madrid v Real Madrid match peaking at 4 million viewers at 9:15pm.
At 8pm, Holby City brought in a healthy and regular 4.5 million viewers and a 22% share, while Back in Time For Dinner‘s time machine landed in the far and distant 1990’s as the family had to deal with the horror of pre-packaged salads and MasterChef.
2.6 million viewers caught up with the fifth and penultimate instalment of the informative and barmy family show, resulting in a 13% share.
At the same time Channel 4’s sorry gastro ‘reality’ show Burger Bar to Gourmet Star (8pm) continued.
The high-concept show, which may be too much for normal viewers to get their heads around, basically involves throwing a clueless burger van employee into the kitchen of a four star Michelin restaurant and then shouting at her until she cries when she inevitably gets it wrong.
An audience of 634,000 watched as aggressive upmarket food preparer, Alan Murchison, made a play for the position of Channel 4’s resident stroppy chef, resulting in a 3% share.
A little earlier in Emmerdale (7pm) the gorge of heavily make-uped gobby women that make up most of the cast, were busy scratching at each other’s throats in a fairly typical trip to ITV’s rural retreat.
Just 4.9 million viewers indulged in last night’s agricultural plotting and backstabbing, resulting in a 30% share.
Afterwards on EastEnders (BBC One, 7:30pm) Ronnie Mitchell finally woke up from her coma, marking the end of the easiest four month acting gig ever. 6.1 million viewers tuned in to see a family on the Square actually receive some good news.
The small Mitchell celebration attracted a 33% share which resulted in Tuesday’s biggest TV hit.
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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