Even glorious weather is no match for Britain’s Got Talent
Despite the balmy climate enjoyed by the UK over the past few days, the weekend’s TV schedule provided enough heavy hitters – including the usual Saturday night favourites and yet another star-studded awards ceremony – to entice healthy audiences back towards their sofas.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, mindless fun-time talent show Britain’s Got Talent (ITV, 8pm) once again blew away all the competitors with another 60 minutes of Saturday night variety hokum.
8.3 million viewers watched as Simon Cowell was inspired to slap down his golden buzzer by yet another dance act – this time dressed up as Stormtroopers (as much innovation as it takes nowadays) – which resulted in an unbeatable 41% share.
BBC One’s big Saturday hit came in the sterilised form of Casualty at 8:50pm, which secured 3.9 million viewers and a 20% share, while earlier at 7:05pm Michael McIntyre’s Big Show brought in 3.8 million viewers and a 23% share.
While Sunday’s offerings didn’t see any such peaks, a line-up of some popular drama and the usual end-of-week suspects saw both BBC One and ITV capture a decent audience share.
[advert position=”left”]The once unstoppable weekly fix of all things rural and green, Countryfile (BBC One, 6pm) performed much lower than usual, possibly hit hard by the fact that its devoted outdoors-loving audience were actually spending quality time outdoors.
Just 4.3 million viewers and a 32% share tuned in to excitedly see the winner of this year’s Farming Hero award finally announced.
Straight afterwards, Attenborough at 90 (BBC One, 7pm) celebrated the life and career of the legendary naturalist, bringing in an audience of 4.9 million viewers and a 30% share.
The rest of BBC One’s evening schedule was handed over to the pageantry and pomp of The British Academy Television Awards at 8pm. The two-hour gala from London’s Royal Festival Hall pulled in 4.5 million viewers, with a 23% share ending a sun-soaked weekend in the company of A-list industry darlings.
ITV ended its week with a two hour block of perfectly comfortable Sunday night viewing. The Durrell‘s journey came to an end at 8pm with a sixth and final episode as adventurous family matriarch Louisa Durrell (Keeley Hawes) prepared to get hitched.
The show about a single mother and her troupe of children who decided to up sticks to Corfu in the 1930s debuted with 6.1 million viewers a few weeks back, with last night’s finale seeing the audience fall to a noticeable (but not fatal) 4.8 million viewers and a 24% share.
The second series of wartime Women’s Institute drama Home Fires (ITV, 9pm) also came to an end with a wedding last night. The show returned with 4.8 million viewers, with the second run of the gentle feminist drama continuing to perform well over the following weeks.
4.1 million viewers watched yesterday as the Battle of Britain came to an end, resulting in a 20% share for ITV.
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.