Corrie’s big move to MediaCityUK pulls in 2.7m for ITV
Last night ITV allowed viewers to take a literal stroll down memory lane as the cast and crew commemorated one of the UK’s most famous television studios in Coronation Street: A Moving Story (9pm).
After 53 years at Granada Studios, it was time for the Coronation Street to move over the Salford Quays to the brand-new life-sized set in MediaCityUK for all them shiny HD cameras to capture and broadcast to the nation.
Taking a heavy emotional angle, the two-years-in-the-making documentary featured grandiose generic ‘life changing’ music scientifically designed to plug away at the heart strings. Splice that with images of Street mainstay Rita Littlewood/Bates/Fairclough /Sullivan/Tanner (they get about these soap types) crying uncontrollably and you had an hour of sentimental reminiscing of years gone by.
2.7 million viewers tuned in to what looked like the most lavish episode of Grand Designs ever, as the sets were expanded to real-life human proportions, with an entire new street added as every minute detail was painstakingly recreated.
Scenes of another Coronation Street-lifer Dennis Tanner getting his tears on as he walked through the minute indoor studio that housed the original petite row of houses in 1960 attracted a 12% share but failed to claim the 9pm slot.
Also attempting to infiltrate your emotional firewall through the magic of manual labour and house construction was the latest episode of DIY: SOS: The Big Build (9pm) on BBC One.
4.3 million viewers watched as Nick Knowles and his team of magical elves battled through a storm to convert a two-bedroom home into something more suitable for a struggling widower and his six children. The particularly emotional episode attracted a 19% audience share and the biggest audience in its time slot.
Only one week after Channel 4 brought us The Storms That Stole Christmas came the dramatic sequel – The Floods That Foiled New Year: Caught on Camera (9pm) because weather is the schedule-filler that just keeps on giving.
The hyperbolic documentary (we’re living in end times according to the music) captured the attention of 1.7 million fearful souls, resulting in an 8% share.
Meanwhile on Channel 5, there was yet another ‘reality’ show where poor members of the public sign themselves up for public humiliation in exchange for some exposure for their struggling businesses.
The fifth episode of the tenth series of The Hotel Inspector (9pm) saw professional antagonist Alex Polizzi once again display her unique selling point for a ratings bid – not that her being a bit of a rude arse to complete strangers shtick gets boring, but only 1 million people watched, translating to a 5% share.
Thank God then for a rare bit of scripted drama over on BBC Two, which brought us the first episode of three-parter 37 Days (9pm). No it didn’t have anything to do with zombies or Sandra Bullock enjoying a fun-looking stint in rehab – prime time’s only traditional drama (with actors acting and everything!) was a political thriller looking at the days leading up to the First World War.
2.2 million viewers got caught up with the British Foreign Office – fronted by none other than Star Wars‘ evil emperor – in 1944 as the international picture became frightfully clear, leading to a 10% share.
An hour earlier saw the return of Angela Rippon and her goon squad as sensationalist and xenophobic tat Holiday Hit Squad (BBC One, 8pm) returned for a second series. 3.2 million viewers watched as Angela unsubtly implied that it’s safer and cleaner to stay in the UK over the holiday period, resulting in a 19% share.
Over on ITV, the respawned Birds of a Feather (8:30pm) wrapped up its first very successful series, with news that a second series (11th, really) has just been commissioned by ITV. The return of the ageing trio of spinsters took everyone by surprise when the dusty series relaunched on 3 of January, netting 7.5 million viewers in the process.
The final episode saw sexually aggressive Dorien learn a valuable lesson about friendships netting 4.8 million viewers and a 21% share.
While Coronation Street enjoyed the prime time attention, the other soaps had to make do with their usual teatime slots. The first of two Emmerdale‘s (ITV) got things underway at 7pm, with 6.4 million people tuning in to see Belle Dingle prepare for a grilling from the police.
This fell to 6.1 million at 8:30pm, which is fairly understandable as it featured a drunken Val Pollard’s attempt at pole dancing on a lamppost in the middle of the village in broad daylight, blinding many fragile and innocent eyes across the country.
In between, over on BBC One, was EastEnders (8pm), in which absolutely nobody in the Square had a very good night. Carol decided to tell Bianca and Sonia some worrying news about their genes while Ronnie had her 100th moment of deep personal crisis since her recent return.
In total, 6.6 million viewers tuned in for the latest thirty minute spell of happiness, netting a 31% share and proving to be Thursday’s most watched programme. The London soap was also the third most tweeted about show of the day.
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.