Scott & Bailey’s 4th series debut suffers a -31% fall on ITV
Just one night after BBC One’s successful lady-focused drama In the Club wrapped up, Wednesday saw ITV take the mantle of strong female-led prime time programming with the return of Scott & Bailey (9pm) for a fourth series.
Manchester’s answer to Cagney & Lacey returned from leave with little change – the women still struggled with their personal lives yet remained (mostly) strong and stoic, while most of the men that appeared to exist in the female crime fighters’ universe still remained 100% useless and incidental.
While the show might seem positively twee compared to former lead writer Sally Wainwright’s other recent and more brutal creation Happy Valley, there was still enough realism to ring true with audiences.
Last year’s third series decided to jump back and forth through time more than Doctor Who on a Christmas special and had the two main leads locked in a vicious cold war, leaving some viewers feeling alienated and leading to a slight fall in popularity.
A total of 5.8 million viewers tuned in for series three’s début in April 2013 but last night’s opening episode only managed 4 million viewers, resulting in a year on year fall of -31%. Scott & Bailey‘s first case of the year didn’t manage to secure the 9pm slot but did bring in a 19% share.
There was more drama at the same time on BBC One but there were no decomposing corpses or intense work place showdowns to be found in the second episode of Our Zoo (9pm). The nostalgic family drama seems to have been seriously mis-scheduled – it’s very post-Countryfile Sunday fayre – but still had no problem securing the 9pm slot for BBC One.
An audience of 4.3 million viewers followed the tale of George Mottershead’s efforts to set up Chester Zoo, resulting in a 21% share.
Things were a little more serious on BBC Two as Horizon (9pm) gave us plenty to worry about on Ebola – The Search for a Cure. 855,000 viewers tuned in to see how precarious and serious a situation the world is facing, netting a 4% share.
Over on Channel 4 Kevin McCloud brought us another couple with another audacious project on Grand Designs (9pm) – the twist this time being the small six month time frame, a relatively minuscule budget (£80,000) and the fact the man of the house planned to build the whole thing himself.
1.9 million viewers watched a little decrepit bungalow in Cornwall was transformed into something amazing. The fact that Kevin actually made the couple cry with praise can have only helped bring in some of the 9% share.
Doing just as well on Channel 5 was another rigidly built house as the inmates of Celebrity Big Brother managed to secure 1.8 million viewers and a 9% share.
Earlier at 8pm, the sixth episode of The Great British Bake Off (8pm) once again blew away the competition with the remaining survivors facing European Cake week. An audience of 8.3 million viewers and a 39% share tuned in for the latest drama from the tent, resulting in Wednesday’s biggest audience.
Over on BBC Two, observational documentary Hotel India continued with the third episode bringing in 1.3 million viewers and a 6% share.
At the same time ITV relaunched Celebrity Squares with Warwick Davis taking over Bob Monkhouse’s hosting duties. An impressive audience of 3.3 million viewers tuned in for the first episode in 17 years, resulting in a 15% share.
Earlier in the evening, ITV’s two soaps scrambled to secure a second or third place behind BBC’s baking juggernaut.
Emmerdale (ITV) got the soap-ball rolling at 7pm, with 5.4 million viewers tuning in for warm-hearted countryside crime, resulting in a 32% share.
But it was Coronation Street (ITV) at 7:30pm that took second place as Kylie struggled with her maternal responsibilities, taking in 6.4 million viewers and a 35% share.
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