C5’s bid at outrage wraps up with 1.5m for Benefits Britain
After a weekend of balmy weather, Monday brought viewers back to reailty with a prime time line-up purely consisting of ‘real life’ observational content that varied widely in tone.
BBC One saw the continuation of John Bishop’s Australia at 9pm, with the comedian still fully confident that his middle-aged return trip to frantically track down his youth would entertain the masses.
The third and final episode of the excursion Down Under saw Bishop retrace the final steps in his gap year trip many years before, including an obligatory bout of labour in the shape of fruit picking and a day trip to the Great Barrier Reef.
It seems that Monday night’s audiences didn’t tire of Bishop’s indulgent licence fee-funded holiday. The adventure kicked off three weeks ago in Cairns with 4.2 million viewers but fell to 3.2 million last week – yesterday saw the cycling spree wrap up in Cairns and brought in 3.6 million viewers and a 17% share.
To counteract Bishop’s frothy jaunt, BBC Two brought us another edition of This World at 9pm, with the latest edition – Clothes to Die For – exposing how the West’s insatiable appetite for disposable and cheap clothing makes us all essentially evil.
740,000 viewers tuned in for the guilt trip which documented the turbulent Bangladeshi garment industry and last year’s factory disaster, generating a 4% share.
Doing much better was the contrived saccharine sweetness of Long Lost Family (9pm), with the second episode of the fourth series of ITV’s tear-inducing trauma reuniting some more estranged souls.
The latest tale of abandonment, blubbering and Davina’s understanding face secured the biggest audience in the 9pm slot with 4.3 million viewers and a 21% share.
Over on Channel 4, the raw recruits of the Royal Marines Commando School (9pm) struggled through their second episode, with the audience falling week on week.
Yesterday showed that whipping the men into shape was going to prove more difficult than a whole series of Mr Drew’s School for Boys and the show was down from 2.1 million viewers to 1.8 million and a 9% share.
At the same time Channel 5 had to face the music and accept the end of tabloid doc Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole (9pm). The final episode in the grim series continued to focus on extreme examples of families living off the state and provided the channel with its biggest hit of the day.
While never quite reaching the ‘outrage’ heights of Channel 4’s Benefits Street, Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole had managed to gain a stagnant fan base over the past six weeks, averaging around the 2 million mark, while the grand finale netted 1.4 million viewers and a 7% share and generated the second highest amount of tweets.
A little earlier, both BBC One and Channel 4 were turning their investigative eye on current affairs and world events as Dispatches and Panorama shared the 8pm slot.
Channel 4’s Dispatches was first up at 8pm and took a look at the developing unpleasantness surrounding the aftermath of Flight MH17’s tragic crash in Ukraine. Journalist and writer Matt Frei was at the scene (presumably not rummaging through the crime scene for shock tactics) detailing the deaths of those on board.
The disconcerting Murder in the Sky – Flight MH17 was watched by 848,000 viewers and a 5% share, with a further 99,000 viewers an hour later on Channel 4 +1.
Over on BBC One at 8:30pm, Panorama focused its intimidating camera on the Metropolitan Police’s firearms policies with the slightly sensationalist titled Police: Shooting to Kill?. Reporter Alistair Jackson was on hand to wield around some blame while interviewing officers who have killed on the job.
The latest report from the BBC’s flagship investigative show secured a healthy 2.2 million viewers and an 11% share.
Always relied on to ignore all that troubling real world nonsense were the foamy soaps of the early evening schedule.
Emmerdale became the day’s fourth biggest hit at 7pm on ITV, with 5.2 million viewers and a 31% share tuning in for the sheep-dipping crime fun.
An onslaught of double Coronation Street (ITV) secured the top two spots, as the ground work was being laid for Ken Barlow’s return. The 7:30pm episode brought in 6.4 million viewers and a 36% share, while the second visit to the cobbles at 8:30pm fell to 6.3 million people and a 32% share.
Coming in third place was BBC One’s EastEnders at 8pm which saw old boy Patrick Trueman become a victim of Ian Beale’s general idiocy.
BBC One’s biggest audience – 5.9 million viewers – watched as Patrick was stopped in his tracks from exposing Ian’s explosive secret (a penchant for a drug-addled lady of the night) by only going and having a stroke. The latest ‘action’ from Albert Square netted a 31% 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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