Davina’s tears secure prime time success for BBC One
On Thursday night BBC One brought the TV viewing nation a gentle reminder that no matter how tough a week you had, a better paid well-known celebrity probably had it worse than you.
Yes, Sport Relief‘s habit of making semi-familiar faces cry in exchange for our hard earned cash continued unabated as 4.5 million people tuned in to see Alex Jones wail while trapped on the side of a very tall rock in the middle of Utah on The One Show (BBC One, 7pm).
If that wasn’t enough, the emotional outpouring continued in prime time as former Big Brother presenter (let’s not mention The Jump) and confirmed masochist Davina McCall swam, ran and cycled her way to near death.
Davina: Beyond Breaking Point (BBC One, 9pm) saw the usually cheery cherub take on an excruciating seven day challenge in order to raise some money, while unnecessarily pushing herself to the psychical and emotional brink because famous people love proving things to themselves. Especially while they are being filmed.
While only 3.7 million viewers tuned in for the harrowing story of aching muscles and near-drownings, it was certainly enough to beat the rest of the competition in the same time slot. Davina’s emotional look back at her mental week of torture secured a 17% share.
The TV personality’s struggle also got some conversation going on Twitter, generating 27,305 tweets to become the second most talked about show of the day.
This was only beaten by David Dimbleby and Question Time at 10:35pm on BBC One, which was watched by only 2.4 million viewers but generated 30,820 tweets.
After dedicating so much of last year’s prime time schedule to Martin Clunes-narrated canine fluff content, last night saw ITV do a 180 degree u-turn to warn us about the threat from a supposed national pandemic that is frothing Shih Tzus.
Dangerous Dogs was a documentary detailing recent attacks on unsuspecting owners, with last night’s first of two episodes bringing in 2 million viewers and a 9% share.
At the same time came the second part of Director David Hare’s The Worricker Trilogy over on BBC Two. The follow up to the star-studded first instalment (2011’s Page Eight) had a lot to live up to but with a cast including a returning Bill Nighy, Helena Bonham Carter, Winona Ryder and Christopher Walken, Turks and Caicos (9pm) certainly looked the part.
2.3 million tuned in for the hour and a half of espionage, double crossing and corrupt government officials, securing BBC Two’s biggest audience of the day and a 12% share.
Slightly less intriguing, but almost just as popular, was Channel 4’s hour long advertisement for an automotive manufacturer on Inside Rolls-Royce (9pm). 2.1 million viewers watched to uncover the mythical secrets of the high end brand (cars are made from metal, apparently), resulting in a 10% share and Channel 4’s biggest hit of the day.
A little earlier at 8pm Angela Rippon was once again all bothered about dicky tummies and dusty table tops in the hard-hitting Holiday Hit Squad. 3.1 million hypochondriacs tuned in for the images of slimy swimming pools and snot-stained bedding. You’d think viewers would get a little tired of the same thing week after week. But no – last night’s audience translated to a 15% share.
The Hairy Bikers’ Asian Adventure (8pm) finally came to an end on BBC Two as Si and Dave visited South Korea where Gangnam Style was mentioned a lot because absolutely no one – especially the Koreans – have tired of that particular phenomenon just yet.
2.1 million viewers tuned in to see the biking comrades chow down on some more street food while generally exacting confused looks from the locals, netting a 10% share in the process.
Earlier at 7pm, Emmerdale kicked off the first of two episodes with 6.2 million viewers catching up with the countryside festivities. The next helping at 8pm saw the audience fall to 5.8 million viewers.
Sandwiched in between was a gloomy reminder that sometimes it rains in the UK with yet another Tonight special about liquid falling from the sky.
After the Floods (7:30pm) explained to a mass audience why flooding was generally bad, with 2.9 million viewers submitting themselves to the torrent of worthy facts and opinions.
But, in the end, it was the more dramatic events in Walford at 7:30pm which took in yesterday’s biggest audience as Michael Moon’s murder case was finally wrapped up.
A day after innocent petal Alice Branning was found innocent, Janine Butcher found herself once again getting away with murder.
An audience share of 32% watched as EastEnders‘ long-standing villain didn’t waste much time getting the hell out of dodge, with fellow serial returnee David Wicks helping Janine escape the studio compound in which they are forced to live and actually go and film on location.
An audience of 6.9 million viewers watched EastEnders (BBC One) as Janine planned her next scheme as she bumped into an overexcited couple who had just won the lotto at St Pancras International’s Eurostar terminal.
“We’re going in first class and everything!” shrieked the over friendly wife excitedly as an ill-favoured look clouded over serial bride/murderer Janine’s eyes. Calm down love, it only costs an extra tenner.
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.