Tragic Call the Midwife finale ruins the weekend for 9.2m
Once again BBC One unleashed its late-in-the-game super weapon Call the Midwife (8pm) on the viewing public last night, managing to secure the weekend’s biggest audience in the closing hours with its signature mixture of rose-tinted nostalgia and blunt and bloody emotional distress.
Yesterday’s rounds in post-war Poplar brought the highly successful fifth series of the East End birthing show to an end, continuing to tackle surprisingly relevant social issues with a delicately handled death of a long-standing character.
After opening up with a little under 8 million viewers back in mid-January, last night’s helping of trauma right before bed improved upon this figure by an impressive 20%.
In total, 9.2 million viewers tuned in to see the staff of Nonnatus House deal with losing one of their own, traumatising a massive 38% share in the final throes of the weekend.
BBC One’s top-notch Sunday night drama continued afterwards with the third episode of lavish and exotic spy drama The Night Manager at 9pm.
Tom Hiddleston’s descent into arms dealing with a perfectly evil Hugh Laurie continued apace, with a solid 6.2 million viewers and a 28% share tuning in for the latest twists and turns in the impressively cast John le Carré adaptation.
Meanwhile, ITV was going kitty-mad with the first half of The Story of Cats (8pm) securing 1.9 million viewers and an 8% share.
Afterwards, the commercial broadcaster launched a brand new ‘classy’ period drama full of pining, bonnets, strategic marriages and lounging about on country estates.
Doctor Thorne (9pm) stars Tom Hollander as the eponymous medic in Downton creator Julian Fellows’ adaptation, so you just knew it was going to be expertly written and full of logical character beats.
An audience of 3.4 million viewers tuned in to see the good doctor explain to his niece that she couldn’t marry the man of her dreams because she was one of them common-voiced poors, resulting in a 16% share.
8pm on Channel 4 saw wandering TV personality Ben Cohen crowned the winner of disastrous reality show The Jump, which somehow managed to reach the sixth and final episode without seeing someone from Hollyoaks die along the way.
1.6 million viewers tuned in to see host Davina McCall beam her trademark blind enthusiasm, resulting in a 7% share and 20 broken z-list celebrities along the way.
Afterwards it was time for Oscar winning wig parade American Hustle, the 2013 scam film from renowned unpleasant human David O. Russell.
An average audience of 664,000 viewers tuned in for the two hour and 40 minute running time, with the carnival of familiar (if unhappy) stars pulling in a 4% share.
8pm saw adventurer Steve Backshall risk life and limb to fill up some of BBC Two’s Sunday schedule as the former presenter of The Really Wild Show attempted to climb up that CG environment from classic Pixar film Up.
Steve Backshall’s Extreme Mountain Challenge attracted 1.5 million viewers, with the enthusiastic – if not extremely dangerous – climb up a Venezuela tepuis netting a 6% share.
A little earlier in the day, the Countryfile team went on a jaunt to Northern Ireland to reinforce some patriotic pride, with a typically concrete 7.8 million viewers tuning in to see some seaweed being farmed, logically attracting a massive 37% 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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