The Island gets deadly as viewers rise to 2.2m on Channel 4
Wednesday night’s TV offered the nation’s viewers a chance to return to the testosterone-fuelled nightmare that is The Island with Bear Grylls (Channel 4, 9pm) as the men’s camp continued to emasculate themselves through a series of psychotic episodes and catty encounters.
After surviving last week’s full-on tropical storm and the fallout from a major personality clash, the 14 men faced fresh challenges from both themselves and the elements. Nothing guarantees a slight popularity jump than putting real life humans in proper danger and the second visit to the bloke-only society provided plenty of hair-raising moments.
Last year the series debuted with 1.9 million viewers, with last week’s returning episode seeing a YoY fall of -16%, after the switch to two weekly episodes exploring the gender divide.
One week on since the second series début (with 1.6 million viewers on Wednesday with the men’s island and 2 million viewers tuning in on for Thursday’s introduction to the women’s faction) last night’s tale of raw instincts and near-death experiences managed to better both with an audience of 2.2 million viewers.
The inevitable departure of the first contestant coupled with scenes of two islanders being swept out to sea helped bring in an 11% share and brought in Channel 4’s biggest hit of the day.
At the same time, BBC Two went a little bit Channel 4 by giving the latest edition of This World a surprisingly alarmist and very provocative title. Kill The Christians (9pm) saw journalist Jane Corbin traverse the Middle East in order to document the steady cleansing of Christianity in the very part of the planet were it originated.
An audience of 927,000 viewers tuned in to hear some horrific accounts of violence and slaughter in the wake of Islamic extremism, resulting in a 5% share.
Doing a lot better at the same time was ITV’s brand spanking new hour of comedy, with the launch of not one, but two new half hour midweek side-splitters.
First up was the commercial broadcaster’s brand new attempt at pop culture parody on Newzoids (9pm), which was like a cross between Spitting Image of old and the horrible shudder-inducing ‘satirical’ celebrity CG nightmare that was 2008’s Headcases.
The new format featured a blend of puppetry and animation and mainly concerned itself with celebrity swipes, although the odd politician was thrown in for good measure, netting 3.4 million viewers and 17% share.
Afterwards, The Delivery Man (9:30pm) captured the outright hilarity of the human birthing experience and threw in a bit of Paddy McGuinness schtik. The first of six episodes of the Darren Boyd-starring sitcom netted 2.5 million viewers and a 13% share.
But the crown jewel in the 9pm slot was once again BBC One’s Secret Britain for the second week running.
Similar to all those many random half-hour domestic tourist shows that ITV constantly crams into its schedule, the second episode of the second series saw Ellie Harrison and Adam Henson roam the moors of North Yorkshire before attempting to make a nice clay pot.
The show and its Countryfile-on-a-Wednesday-night format secured the prime time slot’s biggest audience with 3.8 million viewers and a 19% share.
Earlier at 8pm, MasterChef was on BBC One for the fifteenth time this week, netting 4.9 million viewers and a 25% share, while the bug-slaughtering fun on The Ladykillers: Pest Detectives (BBC Two, 8pm) wrangled in 940,000 and a 5% share.
On ITV, Amanda Holden was delighted with herself as she got to present her very own show as the talent benchmark and dispenser of judgement launched Give a Pet a Home (8pm). 2.6 million viewers watched as six ‘celebrity’ friends volunteered at an RSPCA centre with ‘heart-warming’ results and a 13% share.
Elsewhere, Million Pound Properties won 1.4 million viewers on Channel 4, while the very different situation on Channel 5’s The Nightmare Neighbour Next Door netted 1.2 million and a 6% share.
The bed-hopping antics on Emmerdale (ITV, 7pm) helped the soap get the day’s second biggest audience with the aftermath of James Barton’s dalliance with psycho-in-the-making Emma netting 5.4 million viewers and a 32% share.
Afterwards, Owen Armstrong’s departure from Coronation Street (7:30pm) after five years helped net the top spot, with 6.3 million viewers and a 36% share tuning in to see the hard man strut the cobbles one last time.
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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