Musketeers finale fails to fend off new series of Endeavour
Friday night saw the BBC finally meld together two great minds of their generations as Joanna Lumley meets will.i.am (10:35pm) brought together her off Absolutely Fabulous and him with a fondness for auto-tune.
The frothiest ‘interview’ ever committed to film saw Joanna jet out to LA to willingly get caught up in the musician’s self-created whirlpool of hype. Not content with being worshipped by sheltered children who don’t know any better across the world, the man known as William to his mother seemingly wants to conquer the silver pound, signing up for judging panels of vacant teatime singing competitions – and now this.
Impressively, 2.9 million people tuned in to watch a starry-eyed Lumley act as a one woman PR machine for the massacre of music, resulting in a 20% share seeing the TV legend fawn, coo and flirt her way through an hour of unusual marketing for brand will.i.am.
A little earlier, the crown jewel of ITV’s limp Friday night arsenal came to a close as Edge of Heaven (9pm) finally reached its sixth and final episode. The throwback show set in a guest house in Margate didn’t even manage to retire from the schedules in style, instead bringing on a brutal defeat at the hands of a repeat of New Tricks (BBC One, 9pm) from 2011.
1.4 million viewers (a 7% share) tuned in for the ITV comedy that’s highly unlikely to return for a second series, while the very cold case on New Tricks brought in 3.4 million viewers and a 17% share.
Of course the biggest show of the night – and entire weekend for that matter – was the first visit of the night to Coronation Street (ITV) at 7:30pm. 7.2 million viewers watched as Norris turned his superior powers of trolling to the internet, securing a 36% share.
Surprisingly, the second fix of Weatherfield drama was only the third most-watched show of the night, attracting 6.5 million viewers. Instead, EastEnders (BBC One, 8pm) mustered up the strength (and audience) to win the night’s second place spot, with 6.6 million viewers and a 31% share watching as Jayne Beale had to fight off the men of Walford.
Saturday brought a fresh crop of light entertainment shows as – OMG! – The Voice UK (BBC One, 7pm) hit its penultimate episode with the semi-final of series three. The two hour ten minute event saw the final five contestants once again sing for their lives while the four judges hammed it up to shameless levels of mock drama, attempting to convince viewers that something of actual importance was being decided.
5.9 million viewers watched as one ‘norm’ got the boot and was catapulted out of the shiny and bright studio and back into their grey, boring and ‘average’ life.
Slightly worse off was the controlled chaos of Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Take Away (ITV, 7pm) – your weekend dose of Morrisons-sponsored ‘anarchy’. 5.8 million viewers tuned in to see Peter Andre bring a sense of the cerebral to the occasion, netting a 27% share along the way.
Straight up afterwards, walking organic bag of smug, Phillip Schofield, was once again invited strangers into his own personal box of adventure in The Cube (ITV, 8:25pm). 3.7 million viewers watched as Philip tasked some desperate real people to complete the most inane – but difficult – challenges in order to change their lives. The perfectly manipulative game show scored an 18% share.
A little later at 9:20pm, Casualty pulled in the day’s third biggest audience as 4.9 million viewers tuned in to see Holby City’s ‘ball-breaking’ (which seems counter-productive for a hospital) former director of surgery return, with an audience share of 27% tuning in for Connie Beauchamp’s particular brand of sass.
Sunday; the traditional home of gentle, undemanding middle-aged content – if the schedules are anything to go by anyway.
The most popular shows of the day covered a wide birth of genres including regional detective shows, agricultural chit chat and old people trying to flog their family heirlooms.
Sunday’s TV audience just couldn’t stay away from Matt Baker’s siren call on Countryfile at 7pm on BBC One, as the intrepid reporter popped back home to Durham to catch up with his mother and lend a hand in a spot of lambing. Sounds more like an officially sanctioned day off than a work day, but that’s the BBC, I suppose.
6.2 million viewers watched as Matt pulled up his sleeves and got his hands dirty with his mother, netting a 32% share and the day’s biggest audience.
Straight up afterwards the transient nomadic crew of Antiques Roadshow (BBC One, 8pm) set a course for Scone Palace as their caravan of antique experts smashed more than a few dreams. 4.8 million viewers joined Fiona Bruce for the crazy ride.
At the same time on ITV, the surprisingly well-received young Inspector Morse returned for a second series as Oxford endured yet another reign of terror and murder. An audience of 5 million viewers stayed tuned for Endeavour‘s (8pm) two hour event, netting a 22% share.
On BBC One at 9pm, the period drama travelled a little further back for the final episode of The Musketeers. An audience of 4 million viewers watched as Peter Capaldi’s Cardinal Richelieu turned the pantomime theatrics all the way up, resulting in an 18% share and failing to fend off Endeavour.
Earlier in the day commercial broadcaster ITV decided to celebrate a very important day and slap a ‘Mother’s Day Special’ at the end of two of its top quality shows.
Catchphrase Mother’s Day Special at 6pm brought in 3.4 million viewers while host Stephen Mulhern cracked on to a few old dears.
Next up was Surprise Surprise Morther’s Day Special at 7pm as emotionbot Holly Willoughby turned her powers of tear-inducing manipulation to mothers only, securing 3.3 million viewers and a 17% 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.