BBC One’s Night of Sue destroys the competition
Last night saw BBC One net the late evening prime time slot with a strong mixture of the increasingly dependable competitive baking competition The Great British Bake Off (8pm) and one-off travelogue featuring a very familiar face.
After many years of hovering about the ratings wastelands of BBC Two, BBC Three and Channel 4 (with a recent short-lived stint on ITV daytime for her sins), Wednesday night saw presenter Sue Perkins front not one but two prime time shows on BBC One and ensured the broadcaster secured the biggest audience share for a crucial two hour window.
As the nation’s favourite reality show reached the halfway point of its incredibly successful sixth series, Sue and comedic co-presenter Mel Giedroyc tasked the eight remaining bakers with using alternative ingredients.
Pandering to the fussier among us, Paul and Mary demanded sugar-free cakes, gluten-free pitta breads and a dairy-free ice cream roll, the last of which produced some disturbingly confusing results.
A total of 9.8 million viewers tuned in for the 60 minute slice of twee relaxation, easily fending off the televisual competition with a solid-as-gluten-free-dough audience share of 44%.
Afterwards, Sue had her finger in another prime time pie and invited viewers to escape with her to West Bengal to meet the locals.
Kolkata with Sue Perkins (BBC One, 9pm) saw the chatty travel guide meet street children, embrace the multi-faith culture and highlight the extreme and ever-increasing wealth divide. A surprisingly strong audience of 4.7 million viewers joined in for the honest and non-fawning tour, resulting in a 23% share.
Over in the choppier waters of commercial television, ITV brought a lightweight option to the 8pm table with cheap recycled clip show You Saw Them Here First: Hall of Fame (8pm).
Presumably featuring that clip of Amanda Holden on Blind Date for the 6,000th time – as if it holds some kind of sociological and historical importance to the future of humanity – the pre-makeover, pre-fame shaming netted 2.2 million viewers and a 10% share.
It’s been about a week since the nation was last treated to a police-focused workplace doc, so last night’s The Nick (9pm) from ITV arrived just in time. An audience of 2.5 million tuned in to see the coppers of Brighton attempting in vain to keep the streets civilised, netting a 12% share.
Things got a bit trippy on BBC One as Horizon (9pm) wondered aloud Which Universe Are We In?. 897,000 brave viewers spent their evening attempting to wrap their heads around the basics of the quantum multiverse, resulting in a 4% share.
Afterwards Dr Amanda Foreman travelled around the world to bring the first of four episodes of The Ascent of Woman (9pm), a powerful look at the female’s place in the history of civilisation, netting 739,000 viewers and a 4% share.
On Channel 4 at 8pm, 1.1 million viewers and a 5% share tuned in to watch people with lots of money buy silly things on Posh Pawn, while the latest One Born Every Minute (9pm) netted 1.2 million viewers and a 6% share.
[advert position=”left”]The latest troubled souls highlighted on The Nightmare Neighbour Next Door (Channel 5) was causing more trouble at 8pm, with 1 million viewers and a 5% share tuning in, while the latest Celebrity Big Brother netted 1.2 million viewers.
Earlier in the day ITV’s soaps bagged Wednesday’s second and third spots with Coronation Street bringing in 6.9 million viewers at 7:30pm, while Emmerdale was watched by 5.8 million viewers and a 32% share at 7pm.
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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