Final-ever Outnumbered family crisis nets 4.3m for BBC One
After seven years, five series and a truck-load of Sports Relief/Christmas specials, Wednesday night saw Outnumbered‘s Brockman household close its door to the TV nation for the very last time.
Now that the once-precocious tots have mutated into precocious teenagers, the fifth series focused on their equally difficult paths to normality and adulthood, with Claire Skinner and Hugh Dennis’ TV parents looking on in mild anxiety and horror.
Last night’s finale played out around little Ben’s stage debut (whose been brought up on growth hormones, apparently) in Spartacus The Musical, while aggravating free-spirit Auntie Angela (Samantha Bond) made a timely reappearance.
The first series of Outnumbered (BBC One, 9pm) originally debuted in a late night mid-week slot and aired in its entirety over just two weeks, with the very first episode capturing an overnight audience of 2.8 million viewers at 10:30pm on a Tuesday night in August 2007.
Seeing a potential mainstream hit, the BBC moved the second series of the very modern sitcom about juggling day-to-day responsibilities with moulding children into normal, healthy humans beings to the Saturday night 9pm slot where it received a ratings boost to an audience of 3.7 million viewers.
The current series debuted with 4.8 million viewers back in January with yesterday’s last ever episode falling slightly short of that.
An audience of 4.3 million viewers watched as Jake, Ben and minute astral projectionist Karen made a last-minute step towards adulthood as they synchronistically displayed growing levels of maturity, freaking their long-suffering parents out to no end.
The last slice of middle-class ennui secured an 18% share for the half hour running time, with BBC One stuffing the second half of the prime time slot with a very un-modern sitcom family.
Another airing of Mrs Brown’s Boys (BBC One, 9:30pm) finally saw the popularity of the endless repeats dissipate somewhat. The rerun of the final episode of series two was watched by 3.9 million viewers – still impressive but indicative that at least some people are finally beginning to tire of the dusty pantomime.
Channel 4 also offered up a repeat at 9pm, with 24 Hours in A&E netting an audience of 1.5 million viewers, resulting in a 7% share and the channel’s biggest audience of the day.
At the same time on BBC Two, dodgy cop drama Line of Duty (9pm) continued to delve into murky territories as the ‘good’ cops edged closer to the bigger conspiracy. A sturdy audience of 2.3 million tuned in for the twisty-turny morally corrupt tale, netting a 10% share.
ITV once again handed over the majority of its evening schedule to International Football (7:30pm), with a nail-biting friendly between England and Denmark. After thirty whole minutes of Adrian Chiles’ face, the action kicked off properly at 8pm but unfortunately viewers had to wait a whole eight minutes before the final whistle until somebody done one of them goal things.
Daniel Sturridge’s 82nd minute goal helped pull in an average audience of 5.5 million viewers (over 1 million in shiny HD) and a 25% share for the entire coverage. Interestingly though, the audience peaked 15 minutes into the game, with viewers shooting up to 7 million.
The game secured the biggest share for the majority of the 9pm slot, with Mrs Brown’s Boys running away with the final fifteen minutes once the actual game was wrapped up.
Much earlier in the magical land of soap, the nation’s favourite Coronation Street (ITV) enjoyed a midweek solo outing at 7pm. Not only was it unusual to see a standard thirty minute offering of the Weatherfield drama, there was very little in the way of competition with EastEnders and Emmerdale nowhere to be seen.
Matching up with the general uneventful evening of television, the midweek audience for Coronation Street also looked a little deflated. 7 million viewers tuned in to see mahogany-coated Tina McIntyre continue to make a series of rubbish life decisions, netting a 35% share and the day’s biggest audience.
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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.