ITV’s Chasing Shadows remains static while WDYTYA? dominates
After reducing Mary Berry to a crumbling mess and forcing Brian Blessed to pull anguished expressions that even he struggled with, last night saw Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC One, 9pm) approach Inspector George Gently with a typically tragic dossier of genealogical sob stories.
Scenes of actor Martin Shaw tracking down the fate of his mysteriously Royal Marine grandfather who disappeared from his family at a young age helped BBC One easily secure the prime time slot.
The 11th series of the BBC show has proved another great success for the channel, with Brendan O’Carroll’s walk through Dublin’s troubled past netting a series high of 5.3 million viewers three weeks ago.
Last night’s rummage through historical family trauma didn’t do quite as well, but still managed an average audience of 4.6 million viewers and a 23% share.
At the same time on ITV, the latest programme to jump into the overcrowded market of home-grown procedural police dramas continued with Chasing Shadows (9pm) still attempting to discover its own unique selling point.
The third ever episode saw Reece Shearsmith’s clichéd DS Stone – misunderstood and a renegade, obviously – come face to face with a psychotic serial killer. Last night’s first of a two-part story brought in the exact same audience as the series début three weeks ago, with 2.7 million viewers tuning in, resulting in a 13% share.
9pm also saw Educating the East End endure over on Channel 4, with executives no doubt praying for one of those buzzworthy moments that helped Educating Yorkshire step above the crowd of opportunistic observational documentaries.
Last night’s latest sixty minute slice of gobby children with added confidence took in 1.4 million viewers and a 7% share.
Right on schedule, Channel 5 was on hand to provide some low-level paranoia with Illegals: Breaking Into Britain at 9pm. Featuring the same footage of desperate refugees attempting to storm Calais in France, the shock doc brought in 980,00 viewers and a 5% share.
There was another kind of migration happening on BBC Two, with the second and final part of factual wildlife fun that is Penguins on a Plane: Great Animal Moves (9pm). The show didn’t feature any penguins on any planes but did have a shark travelling from Birmingham to Blackpool and was watched by just over 1 million viewers and a 5% share.
An hour earlier, DIY SOS: The Big Build (8pm) brought in 4.2 million for BBC One while Operation Stonehenge: What Lies Beneath (BBC Two, 8pm) was watched by just over 1.2 million viewers.
A double bill of Emmerdale helped ITV secure the second and fourth most watched shows, with the action kicking off at 7pm. 5.4 million viewers tuned in to see the aftermath of Aaron’s drunken night with Finn, securing a 31% share.
8pm saw Aaron deal with the wrath of Finn’s older brother Ross, with the audience falling to a little over 5 million viewers and a 25% share.
But it was BBC One’s EastEnders (7:30pm) that took Thursday’s top spot, with a devastated Alfie dealing with the guilt of starting the Square’s latest deadly house fire (at least it wasn’t the Vic this time).
6.3 million watched as Kat’s injuries left her husband worried about the truth coming out (possibly just in time for Christmas dinner) resulting in a 34% share.
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.
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