Princess Anne pops up on Countryfile and bags 7.1m viewers
On Saturday the nation’s eyes were glued to TV screens as the build-up to one of the country’s biggest competitions got under way, pushing viewers into feverish anticipation.
That’s right – after weeks of neigh-sayers voicing their descent and potential hopefuls being put out to pasture, it was finally time for the final four contestants on The Voice UK (BBC One, 7pm) to face their final hurdle as will.i.am, Kylie and the other two vocal jockeys held tight on the reins and rode the finalists to completion.
Also, The Grand National was on a little earlier.
While some at the BBC may be delighted that the troubled vocal competition secured Saturday night’s biggest audience, the show’s downward trajectory continued when compared to previous finales.
In June 2012, an impressive 8.4 million viewers watched as Leanne Mitchell was deemed the winner, dropping to 7.2 million viewers in March of last year for Andrea Begley’s controversial crowning.
In total, 6.6 million viewers tuned in to see lucky Jermain Jackman join the illustrious ranks of Mitchell and Begley, with the fickle reality TV show audience momentarily accepting him into their hearts, proving that the show doesn’t even have to make a star in order to scrape by.
The two hour five minute event locked in an impressive 31% audience share and actually peaked at 7.9 million viewers in the last half an hour. While the show resulted in being Saturday’s top performer, BBC’s flagship reality programme needs to be performing better to justify the pomp.
Up against BBC One’s mammoth voice was little old Ant and Dec with their Saturday night house party over on ITV at 7pm. 5.7 million viewers tuned in to see the pair wrap up the 11th series of Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway with the usual rebellious hijinks. Despite being overshadowed by The Voice UK, the variety fun brought in a 26% audience share and ITV’s biggest audience of the day.
Much earlier on Channel 4, the horse puns were coming thick and fast as the 167th staging of a fairly famous steeple race got underway. The Grand National (1pm) live from Aintree, provided over four hours of coverage from the race meeting, with the entire event securing an average audience of 2.7 million viewers and a 24% share.
It wasn’t until the main event itself that saw viewers flocking towards Channel 4, with a peak of over 8 million viewers tuning in for the unpredictable race at 4:14pm, resulting in a whopping 53% share for the fifteen minute block.
The racing excitement didn’t end with French horsey Pineau De Re’s victory – just under 2 million viewers tuned in for the Formula 1: The Bahrain Grand Prix – Qualifying Highlights at 9pm on BBC Two, resulting in a 10% share.
At the same time, ITV rolled out Phillip Schofield and The Cube (8:30pm) for another hour of predictable entertainment and suspiciously TV-ready contestants. 3.3 million viewers perched on the edge of their seats to see if a student nurse could win enough money to buy her daughter a pony, resulting in a 16% share.
Meanwhile, BBC One was once again playing things safe to great effect – 4.9 million viewers caught up with the 32nd episode of Casualty‘s 28th series, securing a 25% share.
Sunday brought a whole new barrel of tricks with the agricultural anarchy of Countryfile bagging Saturday and Sunday’s biggest average audience. 7.1 million viewers watched as a beaming Tom Heap popped round to Princess Anne’s gaff for a cup of tea and a quick natter about all things outdoors, with the royal affair securing a 25% share.
Antiques Roadshow (BBC One, 8pm) followed but wasn’t quite as popular, with 5.9 million viewers watching as Fiona Bruce and her team fleeced nice little old people who remembered the Great War.
At the same time on ITV, Oxford’s unrelenting crime spree continued as young Inspector Morse, Endeavour (8pm), was inspecting another bloody and academic crime scene. The latest two hour mystery pulled in 5 million viewers and a 22% share.
At 9pm on Channel 4, 1.2 million viewers watched Liam Neeson punch some wolves to a pulpy mess in The Grey, with the 2011 film taking a 6% share.
But it was BBC One who captured the 9pm slot’s biggest audience with new period drama, The Crimson Field. Mashing together elements of Call the Midwife and… well, something slightly less frothy, the wartime drama focused on young volunteer nurses who attempted to heal the wounded on the fields of Northern France.
Luckily star nurse Oona Chaplin is used to plenty of blood from her time on Game of Thrones, with the gruesome scenes attracting 6.2 million viewers and resulting in a 26% 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.