TV viewing round-up: August 2017

Despite a large public outcry last year, The Great British Bake Off has survived its transition from BBC to commercial television Channel 4.

Over 8.7 million people tuned in to see that the show hadn’t been ruined by addition of advertising breaks nor having Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding present the show instead of Mel and Sue.

The twentieth anniversary of the death of Diana: Princess of Wales gave UK channels the excuse to air several retrospective documentaries on her life.

The most successful of which was BBC One’s Diana: Seven Days and was watched by 6.4 million viewers. While Channel 4’s Diana: In Her Own Words, pulled in an average audience of 4.6 million.

Five years on from the 2012 Olympics, London once again got to stage a major sporting event with Athletics: World Championships. Featuring the last track appearances of Usain Bolt and Mo Farah, the ten day event provided BBC One with some big television ratings.

Top of the pile was Mo’s narrow failure to land gold in Men’s 5,000 metres final, which was seen by an average of 6.7 million people. Just behind that was the 6 million who saw Jamaican sprint king Bolt’s unexpected defeat to Justin Gatlin in Men’s 100 metres final.

Other programmes that did well in August include: ITV’s royal drama series Victoria, which pulled in 5.6 million viewers; BBC One’s adaptation of JK Rowling’s (written under her Robert Galbraith pseudonym) Strike: The Cuckcoo’s Calling, watched by 8.7 million people; the latest series of Poldalk, which attracted just over 6 million viewers and the final episode of lying medic drama Trust Me, which was seen by 6.3 million people.

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