Britain’s Got Talent continues to devour its midweek rivals
Wednesday night saw Coronation Street remain victorious in its week-long prime time slot as ITV’s other unstoppable force, Britain’s Got Talent,continued to demolish its 8pm rivals.
9pm brought the repercussions of Tina McIntyre’s highly welcome and much publicised tumble, with the residents dealing with the aftermath of seeing the brash barmaid smash into the famous cobbles of Coronation Street (ITV, 9pm).
Unfortunately for viewers, the first murder attempt wasn’t entirely successful, with distraught fans discovering that Tina had actually survived the fall. However, looking at the other side of the coin, fans will never have to sit through another scene of Weatherfield’s scarlet woman sharing some unlikely and uncomfortably passionate scenes with street stud Peter Barlow.
A total of 8.6 million viewers – Wednesday’s biggest audience – tuned in to see Rob Donovan attempt to finish the job with a metal pole after Tina continued to be a gobby irritant even after she was pushed off a balcony.
The day’s most popular show secured a total audience share of 36%, with a little over 1 million viewers choosing to celebrate the finality of the recent and irritating storyline in glorious HD.
An hour beforehand, ITV’s omnipresent variety show continued to gobble up the competition with the fourth consecutive night of Britain’s Got Talent at 8pm (in fact, it’s got so much talent ITV just had to put it on every night this week).
An audience of 8.2 million viewers tuned in for the latest pageant of the delusional and desperate, netting the day’s second biggest audience with a 37% share.
The show’s weekday presence has had a notably negative effect on BBC One’s big shows, with EastEnders and Countryfile being taken down a peg or two earlier this week.
Later Britain’s Got Talent Results brought in an audience of 6.6 million at 9:30pm and was the most tweeted about show of the day.
Thankfully, last night’s edition of the nation’s moral compass, Watchdog (BBC One, 8pm) wasn’t too badly affected. A slightly lower than usual audience of 3.4 million viewers tuned in for Anne Robinson’s condescending tone, with back up from her minions of dumb, Matt Allwright and Chris Hollins.
An audience share of 15% tuned in to learn that those dodgy internet bad guys were back again, flogging counterfeit Kate Bush tickets to the vulnerable and slow minded.
At 9pm, things went from bad to worse for the corporation’s flagship channel as the prime time slot was given up to the second part of the latest unnecessary peak at eccentric ordinary people, Del Boys & Dealers (BBC One, 9pm).
In a change from the channel’s latest observational documentaries, thankfully the show didn’t focus on the ‘human element’ behind high street companies and corporations; instead it looked at everyday individuals who love a bargain.
Falling from last week’s 3.9 million viewers, the second helping of frugal flogging folk fell to just under 3 million viewers and a 13% share.
Things were getting very outdoorsy over on BBC Two, with those perky and happy animal-loving presenters of Springwatch 2014 (8pm) kicking off two hours of unadulterated nature.
2.4 million viewers watched as Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan donned their North Face jackets, sat around in the dark and got their boats floating by spying on a bird going to sleep.
The voyeuristic Suffolk-based avian action secured BBC Two’s biggest audience of the day with a 10% share.
Straight afterwards there was another raft of highly excitable, yet slightly disingenuous presenters, as the third episode of Coast Australia (9pm) continued to explore the staggeringly variant continent.
With visuals that put the entire first eight series of Coast to shame, the new, warmer, focus is perfectly matched to the familiar format.
1.8 million viewers tuned in to see presenter Neil Oliver (basically Noel Fielding without the makeup and blow dry) wander excitedly around the Great Barrier Reef, netting an 8% share.
Over on Channel 4 at 8pm, it was time for The Supervet to hang up his mini bonesaw as 987,000 people watched the final episode, resulting in a 4% share.
Immediately afterwards, Channel 4 treated viewers to a human version of The Supervet, as 24 Hours in A&E (9pm) upped the ante by putting real life people in mortal danger, all for your prime time entertainment.
Among the less traumatising patients on last night’s shift was a little girl with some Lego stuck up her nose, somewhat balancing out all the old people dying around her. Channel 4’s biggest audience of the day tuned in for the challenging show, translating to 1.5 million viewers and a 6% share.
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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