Channel 4’s Jihadis Next Door fuels tweets and nets 1.2m
Last night saw Channel 4’s late evening schedule taken over by eye-opening and Twitterati-baiting documentaries, kicking off at 9pm with the troubling The Jihadis Next Door.
The latest output from Jamie Roberts (Angry, White and Proud) saw the documentary maker spending a significant amount of time with British Muslims who were dedicated to spreading extremist ideology.
Shot over the course of two years, the documentary was recently fast-tracked by broadcaster Channel 4 after one of the show’s subjects, a Hindu convert to Islam Abu Rumaysah, seems to appear in a recent Isis execution video after fleeing Syria from London.
An audience of 1.2 million viewers tuned in for the worrying hour of challenging and controversial Tuesday night telly, resulting in a 5% share and generating over 10,000 tweets.
Channel 4’s 10pm offering played out like light relief in comparison, with Kids Criminals falling into the ‘America’s too big and full of crazies’ genre of factual TV. The first of two parts brought viewers to Indiana’s Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility and was the perfect mixture of scary and depressing.
An audience of 612,000 tuned in to gawp at the dangerous teenagers while questioning the best rehabilitation techniques, if any, resulting in a 4% share.
Just in time for bed at 11pm was Manchester’s Serial Killer?, the type of documentary born from the tweets of over-active users about the 85 canal-related deaths over the past six years.
The programme aimed to investigate the claims on social media that there’s more to the already frightening statistics, with many claiming the open verdict tragedies should be treated as homicide.
621,000 viewers tuned in to see the show follow a handful of separate cases, with help from the grieving but brave parents, following three young men through CCTV in the their last hours.
The tragic but absorbing examination secured an 8% share and charted in the top 10 tweeted shows of the day.
Saying that, all of Channel 4’s late night offerings were beaten in the Twitter stakes by Celebrity Big Brother (Channel 5, 9pm) which secured 2.2 million viewers and MTV’s Ex on the Beach which was watched by 144,000 viewers at 10pm.
Back in the realms of prime time, BBC One’s long-running and dependable exercise in gory but glamorous corpse examining, Silent Witness (9pm), continued to perform strongly.
The sixth episode in two weeks brought the concluding half to the gang’s most recent case, with Dr Nikki and her man helpers stepping over even more bodies while questioning whether a child murderer can ever be rehabilitated, netting 6 million viewers and a 27% share.
On BBC Two, there was a bit of real life relief as Barely Legal Grafters (9pm) documented some loveable scoundrels who describe themselves as entrepreneurs. 1.7 million viewers tuned in to discover they were actually black market smugglers, resulting in an 8% share.
At the same time on ITV, it was time to bathe in the warm glow of thankful survivors’ praise for the strangers that helped save their lives. The latest instalment of the feel-good tearfest Saved brought in 1.2 million viewers and a 6% share.
At 8pm, Holby City (BBC One) netted 4.6 million viewers, while BBC Two’s Victorian Bakers was watched by 2.3 million viewers and ITV’s soggy tale of hard work, Trawlermen Tales, bagged 2.4 million viewers.[advert position=”left”]
Earlier in the day, there was another clash in the land of soap, as rural murder/shagging show Emmerdale (ITV, 7pm) extended itself over an entire hour. Tuesday’s biggest audience tuned in to see Aaron suffer from a self-harm-related infection, resulting in 6 million viewers and a 29% share.
This, of course, meant that a typically cheerful episode of EastEnders (BBC One, 7:30pm) was over shadowed by ITV’s power play.
5.3 million viewers tuned in to see Kat Moon suffer a little more as she bickered with her mental sister and prepared to bury her father, resulting in a 24% share.
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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