BBC One’s John Le Carre adaptation The Night Manager débuts to 6.1m
This past weekend saw a relatively straight forward clash in Saturday’s evening schedule, as rival broadcasters BBC One and ITV both lined up sure-fire light entertainment hits in an effort to glaze over and entrap the viewing public.
There must have been an audible gasp of relief over at the commercial broadcaster last week when the second series of Ninja Warrior UK (still no winner) came to an end, paving the way for the return of its real weekend juggernaut Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway (7pm).
The mash-up of every successful Saturday night hit before it, the 13th series kicked off with the usual mixture of hidden camera prank, a heavy dose of audience participation and the old school comedy stylings of its minute and ever-popular presenters.
Saturday’s biggest audience tuned in to see Wet Wet Wet confirm they are still kicking about, resulting in 6.9 million viewers and a 31% share.
Not doing quite as well was the seventh and final week of The Voice UK‘s (BBC One, 7:15pm) ‘exciting’ blind auditions as Ricky, Willy, Paloma and Boy attempted to up the tension somehow.
Last week’s instalment, which featured much of the same ‘will they/won’t they spin their chair?’ exhilaration brought in 6.5 million viewers, with the latest instalment suffering a noticeable loss thanks to the return of Ant and Dec.
Week on week, it looks like a million viewers have had enough of the contrived and drawn out process with the total audience slipping to just 5.5 million viewers and a 24% share for BBC One.
As per usual, Sunday was a completely different bag with BBC One securing some strong figures with a mixture of traditional and comforting end-of-week telly and quality drama.
Nice and pleasant rural magazine show Countryfile got the giant audience ball rolling (if you can imagine such a thing) at 7:15pm on BBC One, with a whopping 6.9 million viewers and a 32% share tuning in for Ton Heap’s touching and sensitive report on an incurable tree disease.
[advert position=”left”]BBC One’s winning streak continued afterwards with time-travelling birthing drama Call the Midwife (8pm) as things got a bit Silent Witness, with a violent attacker stalking the darkened alleyways of olden day Poplar.
A massive 7.7 million viewers tuned in to see the midwives and sisters of Nonnatus House batten down the hatches, resulting in a 31% share.
9pm brought the début of the latest John Le Carre adaptation, The Night Manager (BBC One), a new six part series starring Tom Hiddleston as a hotel worker attempting to take down Hugh Laurie’s international arms dealer, with a little help from British intelligence.
A solid 6.1 million viewers tuned in for the opening episode, which saw Hiddleston’s Swiss-based manager come up with a plan to expose his guest, resulting in a 26% share.
Meanwhile, ITV’s evening was taken up by another two hour visit from its latest quirky regional detective, Vera (8pm), which saw the sixth series wrap up with the tale of a funny smelling fisherman.
The fourth case in the current run brought in 4.6 million viewers, with the mystery of the bloated corpse bagging a 19% share.
On BBC Two, Dragons’ Den was watched by 2.3 million viewers at 8pm, while Let’s Play Darts for Comic Relief (a title that leaves absolutely nobody doubtful about what’s happening) at 9pm secured 1.6 million viewers.
Over on Channel 4, a minor celebrity was rushed to hospital (presumably) on the latest episode of The Jump, which secured 1.6 million and a 6% share.
Afterwards, Edgar Wright’s 2013 film The World’s End (9pm) brought 1.2 million viewers to Channel 4, while Channel 5’s Sunday night nostalgia trip with Dirty Dancing (8pm) secured 1.1 million.
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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