EastEnders leads a strong Tuesday for BBC One
Just one day after being narrowly beaten by rival soap Emmerdale (ITV, 7pm), Tuesday night saw EastEnders (BBC One, 7:30pm) rise from the ashes of defeat, brush itself off and pull the day’s biggest audience into its vortex of entertaining misery.
Last night’s dose of comfortably familiarity saw Carol Jackson’s get some emotional support for her most recent medical test, in a scene that could actually be described as nice. An average audience of 7.5 million viewers tuned in to see Albert Square’s prodigal Lothario, David Wicks, unsuccessfully fend off the interests of a demented air hostess. An audience share of 34% meant that the long-running East End soap confidently took the day’s top spot.
Beforehand on ITV, Emmerdale was making another play for victory as the Bartons continued to mix business with pleasure. 6.7 million viewers got their Tuesday night fix of rural backstabbing and general skulduggery, resulting in the second biggest hit of the day and a 31% share.
Later at 9pm, The Taste continued to sour for Channel 4 as 732,000 viewers tuned in to see the show limp past the halfway point. The fifth episode gave the contestants a chance to disappoint themselves in front of their relatives as they were asked to cook an old family recipe, netting a 3% share.
Over on BBC One, the third series of Death in Paradise (9pm) still proved popular despite killing off the leading man in the first episode. Thank the casting gods then for Kris Marshall, an actor who was born to play a ‘bumbling Englishman’, as he deliberated over yet another dead body (an air stewardess this time).
6.6 million viewers watched as the latest death on the heavenly island of Saint Marie (crime rates are a bit high though) led to the usual farcical plot being uncovered, securing the 9pm slot for BBC One with a 29% share.
At the same time, ITV only went and stole Channel 4’s thunder by broadcasting the latest documentary in the ‘someone else’s boring job’ genre that the public-service broadcaster seems to love so much.
Births, Deaths and Marriages (9pm) focused on the events of Old Marylebone Town Hall as people wander in off the streets to register – yep – births, deaths and marriages in an overly dramatic fashion. 2.3 million viewers fell for the tales of emotional everyday folk, netting a 10% share.
Not doing as well was Channel 5’s look at chronologically blind love in the beautiful and elegantly titled She’s 78, He’s 39: Age Gap Love (9pm). 1.6 million viewers tuned in to point and gawp, bringing in a 7% share and the channel’s biggest audience of the day.
But it was Sky One’s offering that got people talking – even though only 374,000 viewers to in to see a well-connected former soap actor act all manly in Ross Kemp: Extreme World, it was the most discussed show of the day – on average there were 21 tweets for every 1,000 viewers.
Earlier at 8pm, Holby City (BBC One) secured 5 million viewers, Celebrity Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (ITV) brought in 3 million viewers while Kirty and Phil’s natural charisma and charm on Location, Location, Location (Channel 4) captured over 2 million souls.
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.