Jamaica Inn finale sees audience fall by 32% in three nights
Wednesday night saw BBC One’s latest short-lived period drama, Jamaica Inn (9pm), come to a crashing end after three consecutive nights of refined gothic melancholy.
Despite some sound issues resulting in a deluge of complaints to the broadcaster, the first episode in this adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s classic tale about wrong ‘uns down Cornwall way, performed very well on Easter Monday.
An audience of 6 million viewers tuned into see little orphan Mary (Downton Abbey‘s Jessica Brown Findlay) arrive at Cornwall’s most dilapidated B&B to take shelter with some dodgy relatives. After receiving a record number of complaints for sound issues (mumbling actors, apparently), the audience fell by an alarming 26% by the second night, pulling in a total of 4.5 million viewers.
Wednesday brought further loss, although nothing quite so dramatic. In the end, 4.1 million viewers watched as Mary finally uncovered the unnerving and bloody goings on down by the coast, securing a 19% audience share – the largest for its 9pm slot.
Meanwhile, ITV’s prime time drama offering suffered no such auditory issues as Law & Order: UK (9pm) went all 24 as London’s finest, Brooks (Bradley Walsh) and Hawkins (Ben Bailey Smith), got caught up in a race against time.
Dispatching a number of characters even before the first ad break, the penultimate episode of series eight saw an assassin targeting colleagues of both law and order, ramping up the tension as a result. The climatic action brought in an average audience of 3.5 million viewers and a 16% share.
At the same time on BBC Two, Ian Hislop was busy excitedly wrapping up his three-part look at the power of nostalgia, even dedicating quite a bit of time the national obsession that is reminiscing about the lost rural ideal that most of us never experienced anyway.
The final instalment of the trickily titled Ian Hislop’s Olden Days – The Power of the Past in Britain (9pm) even spent some time singing the praises of The Archers, currently a national psychological service to bring some old-time calm to the masses, apparently.
Hislop may have found himself feeling nostalgic for the glory days of three weeks ago when 1.9 million viewers tuned in for the first episode. This figure fell to 1.4 million for last night’s finale, resulting in a 6% share.
Over on Channel 4 the second episode of alarmist-sounding How to Get a Council House (9pm) looked at the pressure faced by Tower Hamlets, one of London’s most highly populated boroughs.
The grim and honest look at the housing crisis showed viewers a number of desperate families in need of a home, leading to some eye-opening scenes of anxiety. For the second week in a row the documentary with the distinctively sensationalist title won Channel 4’s biggest audience of the day.
On top of that, there was hardly any loss of viewers, week on week, with 1.7 million people tuning in for the second episode, translating to an 8% share. The show also generated 7,479 tweets, making it the second most tweeted about show of the night.
There was a double whammy of horror in the 8pm slot as a herd of estate agents took over BBC 2 while Stephen Mulhern and a pack of random celebrities’ children infiltrated ITV.
The third episode of Under Offer: Estate Agents on the Job (8pm) looked at the property market spectrum, all the way from humble properties in the Outer Hebrides to opulent mansions in Cannes. The fly-on-the-wall documentary took in BBC Two’s biggest audience of the day with 1.7 million viewers.
On ITV, 3.8 million viewers tuned in to see a long suffering soap star and a former Atomic Kitten (of which there have been many) flog their kids to the nation on Big Star’s Little Star (8pm). But it was BBC One’s ever dependable MasterChef that secured the 8 pm slot, with an audience of 5 million viewers and a 24% share tuning in.
Earlier in the day, ITV held total dominance in teatime viewing with Emmerdale netting a little over 6 million viewers at 7pm. This was followed straight afterwards by a trip up Weatherfield way as Leanne wrapped her lips around newcomer Kal, who inadvertently had to step in for a stripper in the Bistro because…soaps.
Once again Coronation Street (7:30pm) won the day’s top spot, reclaiming some ground after EastEnders‘ impressive week. 7.5 million viewers watched as the terminally betrodden former Battersby enjoyed a few moments of happiness, securing a 36% share.
10pm saw the return of Ricky Gervais’ sentimental irony-free comedy Derek on Channel 4. Not only did the first episode of the second series about a simple minded care home worker attract an impressive 1.5 million viewers but it was also the most tweeted about show of the day, with a total of 31,284 tweets.
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.