Brendan O’Carroll’s Dublin-bound WDYTYA? nets a series high
Thursday night saw Mrs Brown’s Boys‘ ‘funny man’ Brendan O’Carroll brought back to the streets of Dublin as the comedian was the latest celebrity to sign up for the public therapy session that is Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC One, 9pm).
On the hunt for his grandfather’s killer, O’Carroll dived into the Irish capital’s dark past and uncovered the usual amount of traumatising ancestry secrets, guaranteeing those valuable celebrity tears kept on flowing.
So far the eleventh series has seen Julie Walters and Brian Blessed’s jaunts down memory lane attract 4.6 million viewers each, while last week’s episode featuring Tamzin Outwaite getting upset over people long dead fell to 4.3 million viewers.
The tale of O’Carroll’s linage, which involved the IRA and the Black and Tans attracted the series’ biggest audience yet with the fourth episode in the current run securing 5.3 million viewers.
An audience share of 21% tuned in to discover who exactly assassinated his family member at the height of the Irish War of Independence, resulting in the biggest 9pm audience.
There was much lighter fayre on offer over on ITV with cringe-inducing one-off ‘documentary’ Prom Crazy: Frocks and Ferraris (9pm), a Super Sweet 16-style look at the Americanisation of celebrating GCSE results.
1.5 million viewers tuned in to see the audacious teens of today glam up for their tacky (and extremely expensive) children’s parties, resulting in a 7% share.
At the same time, BBC Two provided some wildlife of a more natural kind as the 33rd series of Natural World wrapped up with Attenborough’s Fabulous Frogs (9pm). 1.3 million viewers caught up with Sir David’s love letter to his amphibian friends, resulting in a 6% share.
Meanwhile, Channel 4 came up with the perfect way to keep on milking that moment from Educating Yorkshire for every last drop of frothy ratings goodness. Stammer School: Musharaf Finds His Voice (9pm) saw the breakout star of his former show join other youngsters dealing with speech impediments for a four day intensive course.
Surprisingly, the new format couldn’t quite match the previous popularity of the school-based show which pulled in 2.6 million live viewers back in October for Musharaf’s much-relayed moment. Proving that producers can spread a naturally magical moment a little too thin, last night’s return brought in 824,000 viewers and a 4% share.
A little earlier, DIY SOS: The Big Build secured the 8pm slot for BBC One, with 4.5 million viewers, while the latest Location, Location, Location was watched by 1.1 million on Channel 4.
Even earlier, a double Emmerdale competed with EastEnders for the top spot with some mixed results. This first trip to the Yorkshire Dales at 7pm on ITV secured Thursday’s biggest audience with 5.5 million viewers and a 32% share as Ross Barton’s attempts to attend Donna’s funeral were thwarted.
Over on BBC One, EastEnders (7:30pm) saw the return of Cindy to the Beale household (no, not that one), resulting in the day’s second biggest hit with 5.4 million viewers and a 30% share.
The second episode of Emmerdale (8pm) didn’t do quite as well, with scenes of a very angry Ross attempting to gatecrash the service bringing in just 5 million viewers and coming in at fourth place, behind Who Do You Think You Are?.
The Social TV Analytics report is a daily leaderboard displaying the latest social TV analytics Twitter data from SecondSync. The table shows the top UK TV shows as they are mentioned on Twitter, which MediaTel has correlated with the BARB overnight programme ratings for those shows (only viewable to BARB subscribers).
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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