The Met: Policing London continues to bloom on BBC One
For the fourth week in a row, BBC One’s real-life police procedural The Met: Policing London (9pm) secured the prime time slot and even managed to once again grow its audience in the process.
The fourth episode of the surprisingly candid look at the work of the capital’s police force last night showed viewers scenes of coppers dealing with suicide attempts, a burglar literally caught in the act as he hung from a first floor window and the usual array of abusive drunks.
The first episode opened up with 3.3 million viewers, with the audience crawling up to a little over 4 million viewers and a 21% share for last night’s penultimate instalment.
Beforehand Panorma (BBC One, 8:30pm) was back with the slightly superfluously titled The Missing Stolen School Children, which looked at the kidnapping of 276 Nigerian girls in 2014 that unified social media in outrage for about five minutes before being forgotten about.
An audience of 1.8 million viewers tuned in to learn that only a few have been accounted for while many have been radicalised and joined their captors, with the truly depressing hour of telly netting a 9% share.
Over on BBC Two, Today at Wimbeldon was discarded in favour of a much more hip and with-it rebrand of Wimbledon 2day (8:30pm), single-handedly attracting the nation’s youth and digital natives to the green courts of SW19.
While coverage of Wimbledon 2015 (BBC Two) kicked off at 11:30am and managed to bring in an average audience of 814,000 viewers over nine hours of broadcast, the hour-long highlight show at 8:30pm was watched by 1.3 million viewers, with Clare Balding’s usually top notch ball analysis helping pull in a 7% share.
ITV’s hour of prime time comedy continued to attract a humble amount of viewers with the second to last trip to Stuart and Freddie’s Covent Garden haunt in Vicious netting 2.3 million viewers and a 12% share.
Afterwards, It’s a Funny Old Week (9:30pm) saw Jason Mansford trawl through all the happy news to then regurgitate it back to a simple-minded audience, bringing in 1.2 million viewers and a 6% share for ITV.
On Channel 4, the final episode of Kevin McCloud’s Escape to the Wild (9pm) once again saw the Grand Designs presenter vocally judge a family’s lifestyle choices as he joined the Rees clan in northern Sweden, resulting in 2 million viewers and a 10% share.
What Kevin would make of the modern Borehamwood house share on Big Brother (9pm) is anyone’s guess, but last night’s slice of contrived nastiness was watched by 1 million viewers and a 6% share.
Much earlier in the day Emmerdale (7pm) brought in 5.4 million viewers and a 32% share while EastEnders (BBC One, 8pm) was watched by 6 million viewers and a 32% share on BBC One.
Coronation Street (ITV) took the day’s top spot at 7:30pm with 6.5 million viewers and a 36% share.
Stealthily sneaked in-between the Weatherfield drama was a sub-rate version of one of the BBC’s highest performing factual shows.
ITV’s not-at-all-similar-to-Countryfile-in-any-way agricultural show Countrywise got under way at 8pm as not-John Craven, Paul Heiney, dithered about the countryside in a strikingly less popular manner, with 2.4 million viewers and a 13% audience share.
Coronation Street was back at 8:30pm with a further 6.5 million viewers and a 32% share.
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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