Hugh’s waste crusade increases by 38% in one week on BBC One
Monday night saw the second half of preachy – yet gently informative – BBC One Show, Hugh’s War on Waste, increase its audience by a massive 38% week on week and easily stole yesterday’s biggest 9pm audience from its competitors.
Last week’s opening episode saw cottage-dwelling Hobbit Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall launch a one man crusade against waste by accosting surprised shoppers and chucking away their groceries for full-on tabloid effect.
Although contending with a grumpy (and very popular) ITV doctor, last week’s instalment still managed to attract 3.4 million viewers and topped the day’s TV Twitter chart.
Despite the highly unentertaining premise, Hugh seems to be doing something very right with his campaign, with last night’s concluding half seeing the maverick presenter joining in on midnight raids on supermarket bins as well as making a point by dumping a load of old cloths in the middle of a shopping centre.
4.6 million viewers tuned in last night to see Hugh attempt to channel Jamie Oliver-levels of passion, resulting in a 22% share, generating the most tweets for a second week and a 9pm victory for BBC One.
At the same time on BBC Two was the début of classy clandestine drama London Spy (9pm), starring James Bond’s Baby Q, Ben Whishaw.
The first episode of the five part drama saw Whishaw’s Danny embark on a relationship with an MI6 spy before, unsurprisingly, things go horribly wrong. 2.5 million viewers tuned in to follow the emotional twists and turns, resulting in a 12% share.
Meanwhile ITV scrambled to replace that gaping Doc Martin-shaped hole in people’s lives with some Zach Galifianakis-shaped filler by treating viewers to Monday night movie film, The Hangover (9pm).
The first part of the mainly opportunistic and increasingly awful trilogy secured an average audience of 2.8 million viewers (despite being interrupted for half an hour for ITV News at Ten, which bagged 1.4 million viewers) with the boisterous lads’ adventure in Vegas netting a 9% share.
Over on Channel 4 was the fourth and penultimate episode of SAS: Who Dares Wins (9pm), which is basically a televised version of those annoying early morning workout sessions in the park dressed up as psychological warfare.
Featuring lots of shouting and sassy comments from the bullish instructors, the last two episodes of the show have been delving further into the over dramatised reality TV format as the original hoard of hopefuls were whittled down to six.
The focus on the remaining individuals has thrown up a number of sob stories, with people overcoming emotional obstacles and everything. The ultimate man-challenge opened up with 1.7 million viewers a few weeks back and slowly fell to 1.3 million for last week’s cull.
Yesterday saw the surviving contestants being thrown into an escape and evasion mission and saw interest crawl back up to 1.5 million viewers and secured a 7% share for Channel 4.
Meanwhile on Channel 5, the official home of premium exploitative welfare output, was the second of 30 episodes of On Benefits (9pm). This week’s exercise in scraping the barrel, entitled On the Yorkshire Dole, secured 1.2 million viewers and a 6% share.
Earlier at 8pm on Channel 4, Dispatches offered up part-expose part-capitalist love letter Aldi’s Supermarket Secrets and secured 2.8 million viewers and a 12% share.
Countrywise (8pm) offered a break from Emmerdale and brought ITV viewers a glimpse of the rural ideal that didn’t involve explosions or murder and brought in 2.7 million viewers (a 12% share)
[advert position=”left”]At 8:30pm on BBC One Panorama looked at How Hackers Steal Your ID and sent 3.1 million viewers and a 14% share into a panic.
Over on BBC Two, Simply Nigella was busy offering up saucy recipes as well as plenty of glad eye for good measure. 2.4 million viewers watched as Nigella balanced the horror of a vegan chocolate cake with the beautiful madness of pork belly burgers, resulting in an 11% share.
Even earlier, Emmerdale (7pm) netted 6.2 million viewers (a 31% share) for ITV while the latest sadness on EastEnders (8pm) brought in 6.5 million viewers (a 29% share) and the day’s second biggest audience.
The first Coronation Street (ITV, 7:30pm) of the night bagged the day’s number one spot with 7.5 million viewers and a 35% share, dropping to 6.4 million viewers and a 29% share for the 8:30pm visit.
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.
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