Channel 4’s The Island with Bear Grylls tinkers with gender format, down -16% YoY
Kind of like I’m a Celebrity… but with no celebrities and a bucket load of real suffering, Wednesday night saw the return of one of Channel 4’s moderate hits of 2014 as The Island with Bear Grylls (9pm) came back with a slightly altered format.
With the first series coming under fire for being sexist – as, shockingly, a social experiment purposely focusing on men only featured men – the show buckled under pressure (and conveniently used the ‘outrage’ for lots of exposure).
Last night saw series two up the ante by including both men and women, divided across two islands, all for the purpose of appeasing its critics and opening up its target audience.
Unfortunately the format still included continual and distracting interruptions by Captain Obvious himself, Bear Grylls, who felt the need to constantly rush at the camera every two minutes to explain exactly what we were seeing on screen.
Also changing was the number of episodes, up from six to 14, with last night’s opening instalment looking solely at the men’s island as the troupe were abandoned with no food or shelter and quickly turned on each other.
The very first episode opened with an overnight figure of 1.9 million viewers back in May 2014, with last night’s mixtures of man-spats and tears bringing in a slightly worse audience of 1.6 million viewers and an 8% share.
Despite the year on year fall of -16%, the survival show about people crying in the rain managed to be the second most mentioned show on Twitter yesterday. It remains to be seen if tonight’s episode introducing the women’s island will fare any better.
Doing much better was ITV’s current resident glum detective DCI Banks (9pm), who finally reached the end of his third series.
The current run of the no-nonsense crime procedural starring Stephen Tompkinson was hit hard by viewer ennui when it returned, with the opening episode falling to 4 million compared to series three’s first episode which netted 5.7 million last year.
Last night’s finale brought in an audience of 3.7 million viewers – not quite enough to win the 9pm slot or for ITV to announce a fifth series – and resulted in an 18% share.
But it was BBC One that locked in the 9pm slot’s biggest audience as Ellie Harrison and Adam Henson broke away from their Countryfile shackles to bring the nation something exactly like Countryfile.
Secret Britain (9pm) was as lightweight as the set-up suggested; with the worryingly happy presenters poking their noses around the Kingdom’s hidden treasures, as suggested by viewers.
3.9 million viewers tuned in to see Harrison re-enact a scene from The Descent as she plunged into the UK’s biggest hole with an atypically concerned demeanour, resulting in a 19% share.
There was something completely differently on BBC Two, as This World: Jihadi Brides was watched by 981,000 and a 5% share, while Channel 5’s OAPs Behaving Badly netted 869,000 and a 4% share.
Earlier at 8pm, MasterChef continued its relentless omnipresent run as the knock out stages continued. Exactly like every other episode of MasterChef you’ve seen, last night’s serving brought in 4.8 million viewers and a 24% share.
On BBC Two, female bug slaughter documentary The Ladykillers: Pest Detectives was watched by 1.2 million viewers and a 6% share, while Supercars: The Million Pound Motors on Channel 4 and Channel 5’s The Nightmare Neighbour Next Door both brought in just over 1 million viewers and a 5% share each.
All good things must come to an end and, sadly, last night saw the exhilarating third series of Big Star’s Little Star (8pm) come to a close.
The game show, in which minor celebrities win respect from the population by parading their little darlings around on national TV, was watched by 3.2 million viewers and a 16% share.
Earlier in the dizzying heights of soapland, Emmerdale (ITV, 7pm) was the day’s second most watched show with 5.7 million viewers and a 32% share.
Coronation Street, at 7:30pm on ITV, bagged the number one spot, with scenes of soft-headed Tim getting used to his newborn grandchild bringing in 6.9 million viewers and a 36% 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.
To get all the latest Mediatel Newsline updates follow us on Twitter.