ITV’s Safe House dominates prime time slot for third week
Despite the bank holiday Monday, yesterday’s TV schedule was mostly business as usual with just an old-school ‘sporting’ tournament and a sombre remembrance giving some reprieve from the usual start-of-week soaps, news and docs.
8:30pm on BBC One brought a slightly-too-early celebration marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, with famous faces casting their minds back to the past to provide prime time audiences with suitably amusing anecdotes.
With Julie Walters’ narration helping to ease the two and a half hour running time, VE Day: Remembering Victory saw Honor Blackman, Patrick Stewart and Una Stubbs, among others, paint a vivid picture of an entire nation celebrating in giddy unison after six years of horror.
2.8 million viewers tuned in for the grave reminder of the cost of personal freedom, with Europe’s biggest ever party netting a 12% share.
A little earlier, BBC Two also seemed slightly out of time as the channel’s entire evening was handed over to the thrilling domain of competitive ball-potting as the planet’s greatest athletes clenched their fists over their weapon of choice (the mythical que stick) and battled it out for ultimate victory in World Championship Snooker (7pm).
Trundling on for a little over 4 hours, an average audience of 3.3 million viewers watched as Captain Charisma Stuart Bingham defeated arch nemesis Shaun Murphy in a brutal smackdown, with a 16% share watching the Beast of Essex life the trophy.
At 9pm on ITV, the brooding grey-tinged hues of Safe House continued to enrapture a fairly decent audience with the third and penultimate episode of the shouty thriller seeing the family-in-hiding tear themselves apart out of pure boredom.
For the third week in a row, the tale of a broken ex-copper and the highly dysfunctional family he agrees to protect in his rural home secured the 9pm slot for the commercial broadcaster.
5.3 million viewers watched two weeks ago for the début episode of Christopher Eccleston’s brand of angry paranoia, falling to 4.6 million viewers a week later.
Despite episode number three continuing the downward trends, last night’s trip to the Safe House still scored the top spot in its timeslot with 4.2 million viewers and an 18% share.
Over on Channel 4, Jonny Benjamin, a man who’s been riding a self-perpetuated media tidal wave for six years now, finally got his very own prime time documentary looking at a very low moment in his life.
Following his appearances all over Facebook, Twitter and national newspapers, The Stranger on the Bridge (9pm) documented Jonny’s very public attempt to find a unknown man who talked him out of ending his life following a schizophrenic episode.
1.4 million viewers tuned in for the reunion, resulting in a 6% share and plenty of mentions on Twitter.
On Channel 5, Gotham‘s never-ending first series continued and, yes, Bruce Wayne was still a nine year old. 900,000 tuned in for another hour of foreshadowing and sly references to exciting characters that will never appear, resulting in a 4% share.
A bit later on Channel 4, the up-to-the-minute political ‘hilarity’ of Ballot Monkeys (10pm) brought in 788,000, with the ‘stinging satire’ netting a 4% share.
Earlier, the soaps were battling it out for Monday night dominance with the usual result. Emmerdale at 7pm on ITV brought in 5.5 million viewers and a 28% share.
Over on BBC One, Richard Blackwood reached deep down into his Thespian bag of tricks in order to butch up good and proper and come across all intimidating to script writers’punching bag Ronnie Mitchell.
The latest random antagonising fun on EastEnders (8pm) was watched by 6 million viewers and a 26% share.
But it was the northern strife on Coronation Street that took the top two spots, netting 6.7 million viewers at 7pm and falling slightly to 6.4 million viewers at 8pm.
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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