TV Overnights: A dramatic night for BBC One

EastEnders was the most watched programme during Tuesday’s TV line-up, drawing in 38% of the available audience. 8.3 million viewers tuned in to see Ray realise the extent of Bianca’s obvious financial troubles. Over 60% of viewers watching the soap, airing at 7:30pm on BBC One, were female.

Earlier on, Emmerdale scored ITV1’s biggest hit of the day, securing an audience of 6.7 million people (a 32% active reach) at 7pm .

While the main rival channels littered Tuesday’s prime-time schedule with game shows and documentaries BBC One committed itself to old-fashioned scripted drama. Holby City followed EastEnders at 8pm and won a 25% audience share with an average audience of 5.6 million viewers. The penultimate episode of Prisoner’s Wives at 9pm continued this trend, with Francesca and Paul sneaking off from the visitor’s room for some quality time (and a spot of evil plotting). The show took 17% of the available audience with just over four million viewers.

Over on Channel 4 at 9pm the hugely successful Big Fat Gypsy Weddings scored an audience of 4.2 million viewers. The third episode of the series focused on four girls’ experiences of mainstream education and had an audience share of 18%, while a further 948,000 viewers watched the show an hour later on Channel 4 +1.

On BBC Two at 9pm Michael Mosley brought the nation some good news about exercising, a welcome change for the BBC’s flagship science programme. Horizon: The Truth About Exercise claimed that many of us could benefit from as little as three minutes high intensity exercise a week. This was greeted by 2.9 million viewers, providing BBC Two’s biggest audience of the day.

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.