How to Stay Young and Line of Duty sees BBC secure 9pm slot
Thursday night brought some prime time victory to the screens of BBC One with a combination of a accustomed cooking competition and an educational magazine show stealing the biggest audience share.
At 8pm the broadcaster rolled out another instalment of comfortably familiar competitive food prep show MasterChef (BBC One), with the 11th episode of the 12th series (23rd including those pre-revamp years, 33rd if including the celebrity version) seeing some more hopefuls cook their way to glory.
4.4 million viewers tuned in for the serving of easy viewing, resulting in a 21% share.
At 9pm, the second half of slightly condescending magazine show How to Stay Young (BBC One) secured its time slot as Angela Rippon and Dr Chris van Tulleken once again filled up an hour of telly with bite-sized experiments and vague advice.
Last week’s slice of secrets-sharing pulled in an audience of 4 million viewers as van Tulleken donned some dodgy old-age make up to prove some point about something, with last night’s second half falling by almost 1 million viewers.
3.5 million people tuned in to see Rippon travel to Japan to try some food for the brain, resulting in a 17% share.
Over on ITV, Bargain Shop Wars provided some mindless entertainment at 8:30pm with the latest workplace doc bringing in 2.5 million viewers and a 12% share.
At 9pm, the former Lilly Savage was back with another bleeding heart appeal and after last week’s Sally Army programming was back in the more familiar realm of cuddly critters. Paul O’Grady’s Animal Orphans was exactly what we’ve all come to expect at this stage, bringing in 2.4 million viewers and an 11% share.
There were plenty more sick puppies over on BBC Two, both of the actual kind and the human sort.
Jungle Animal Hospital – Natural World did what it said on the tin at 8pm, securing 1.4 million viewers and a 7% share, while the latest instalment of corrupt copper drama Line of Duty (9pm) continued to perform well with 3.3 million viewers and a 16% share.
[advert position=”left”]Channel 4 honoured its remit and provided some more anger fuel at 8pm with the middle episode of Millionaire’s Mansions: Designing Britain’s Most Exclusive Homes, which featured some more extremely lucky chancers selling their wares to the terminally wealthy. 1.1 million and a 5% share tuned in.
At 9pm, it was time for the second instalment of the slightly patronising sounding British Army Girls. The latest military recruitment spot from the broadcaster, which featured more drop-outs and even harder trials ahead, nabbed 997,000 souls and a 5% share.
Channel 5 was busy getting all highbrow last night with a flurry of medicinal programming. Medical Mysteries (8pm), which featured a plethora of unfortunate conditions, netted 511,000 viewers and a 2% share while the tense reality of Trauma Doctors: Every Second Counts (9pm) secured 774,000 viewers and a 4% share.
Earlier on ITV, Emmerdale brought its historical child abuse storyline to a close with two episodes, with the charming teatime soap netting 5.8 million (a 32% share) at 7pm, falling to 5.4 million viewers (a 26% share) at 8pm.
BBC One’s trip to Walford at 7:30pm won Thursday’s top spot as it dawned on newly returned (and newly regenerated) Johnny Carter that Albert Square is actually an awful and dangerous place, with EastEnders securing 6 million viewers and a 30% 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.
To get all the latest Mediatel Newsline updates follow us on Twitter.