Schedule-filling doc about sugar wins 9pm slot for BBC One
Thursday night brought a glut of factual documentaries to UK TV screens, resulting in a rather lacklustre night of prime time thrills with only BBC Two managing to deliver some scripted drama amongst the sea of reality output in the 9pm slot.
BBC One decided to brighten up viewers’ Thursday evening with a whole hour dedicated to the dangers of all those things that are nice to eat, with presenter Fiona Phillips being released from the corporation’s vaults to ensure smooth proceedings.
Last night’s episode of The Truth About (9pm), the first of four light and breezy documentaries looking at health matters, focused on those devilishly sweet granules of sugar. Turns out, it’s really bad for you.
An audience of 3.7 million viewers tuned in to find out that the UK’s population is basically addicted to hidden sugars found in many foods, inevitably leading to our doom.
An 18% audience share was enough for the hard-hitting investigation to beat its rivals, so it came to be that a factual magazine show about the world’s favourite sweetener secured prime time glory by attracting the biggest audience in its time slot.
Meanwhile, ITV was struggling to draw a crowd with its own stab at human interest documentary on the oddly-titled The Triplets Are Coming! (9pm). Just 1.7 million viewers tuned in to see two families deal with their superfluous gifts from the fertility gods, resulting in a 9% share.
Over on Channel 4, it was time to push some boundaries just for the hell of it as a former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission decided to bring us Things We Don’t Say About Race That Are True (9pm).
Whether the show was a super relevant conversation piece about the dangers of ignoring our differences or just more manufactured reactionary outrage Twitter bait, Trevor Phillip’s musing helped the intellectual investigation become the second most Tweeted about show of the day.
1.4 million viewers, Channel 4’s biggest audience of the day, tuned in to join the debate and watch UKIP leader Nigel Farage enjoy his latest spot of national exposure, resulting in an 8% share.
At the same time, there were more sorry tales about women being wronged by falling for the allure of the exotic in the latest Holiday Love Rats Exposed (9pm). The single-minded and xenophobic doc about women who made fairly questionable life decisions in the first place netted 708,000 viewers and a 4% share.
BBC Three being BBC Three decided to offer up something quite lightweight and frothy but at the same time covertly educational with Muslim Beauty Pageant and Me at 9pm. 161,000 viewers watched as a British Muslim ruffled a few feathers in Indonesia as she documented The World Muslimah, resulting in a 11% share.
BBC Two, last night’s sole purveyor of quality scripted drama, brought the third instalment of Jimmy McGovern’s ye olde class warfare show Banished (9pm). Like I’m a Celebrity and Downton Abbey got mixed up in the wash together, the drama tells the tale of the first British penal colony in Australia.
Despite a devastating -30% drop when the second episode aired, there was no such similar damage taken last night, with the third trip to the simmering camp site bringing in 2.3 million and an 11% share.
Earlier, a double dollop of Emmerdale brought in 5.4 million and 5.1 million to ITV at 7pm and 8pm, respectively, while BBC One’s flagship soap EastEnders (7:30pm) netted Thursday’s top spot.
An audience of 6.3 million viewers tuned in for the teatime musings about life, death and general decay, resulting in a solemn audience share of 31%.
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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