The Walking Dead shuffles back onto FOX with 582,000 viewers
Monday night’s prime time programming offered up a deluge of grim and traumatising content for viewers to kick off a brand new week of TV with.
After leaving its audience in a state of complete and utter despair when the first half of the fifth season wrapped up three months ago, The Walking Dead (FOX, 9pm) returned last night to make life just that little bit bleaker.
The post-apocalyptic zombie drama, which probably beats Game of Thrones in the audience punishment stakes, left our group of perennially chastised survivors reeling from yet another devastating loss, leaving its viewers in a nihilistic state of numbness.
The Walking Dead has been performing outrageously well across the pond, with 14 million people in the US tuning in for last year’s bleak mid-season finale. Over here, FOX hasn’t quite matched those figures with only 425,000 tuning in to see Georgian songbird, Beth, die in a painfully senseless manner on 1 December 2014.
Yesterday’s return actually managed to better that just with 582,000 viewers tuning in to see a mentally shattered former Sheriff’s Deputy, Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his crew of lost survivors cruelly handed another taste of hope.
Naturally, this being The Walking Dead, things went very wrong, very quickly, resulting in the usual festival of anguish.
In total, an audience share of 3% tuned in for some more brutal emotional torture, expressing their despair on the internet and sending it to the top of the TV Twitter chart.
In a similar, but much more accessible vein, ITV continued to deliver some extreme crying of its own, with the latest instalment of pasteurised misery-fest Broadchurch (9pm).
The show has seen the divisive second series leave some viewers behind in the dust as a result of attempting to move the story forward while paradoxically being forcibly anchored to the events of series one.
But at least there was some good news attached to the sixth outing this year from sad faced Hardy and Miller, with the slow burning thriller actually seeing the first week on week increase in popularity this series.
Series two opened with 7.3 million viewers six weeks ago, with the audience falling by a massive -35% by the time last week’s episode rolled around with 4.8 million viewers.
Last night’s visit to the Dorset’s saddest and sunniest town saw the audience jump by over a million (thanks in part to the absence of Silent Witness) as Miller (Olivia Coleman) closed in on the Sandbrook case while Hardy’s (David Tennant) health was in a less than spectacular place.
In total, 5.9 million viewers watched as the show hurtled into the final three episodes, netting a 26% share and the biggest 9pm audience.
There was even grimmer regional drama on offer over on Channel 5 with yet more bottom of the barrel goodness from Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole (9pm). After a nice break, the show returned with more exploitative scenes, this time from the forgotten village of Jaywick in Essex.
An audience of 2 million viewers tuned in to see frustrated locals vent their angry pearls of wisdom while necking some special brew, securing a 9% share in the process.
By pure accident, BBC One seemed to offer up a counter balance to Channel 5’s utterly sorry show with a Panorama special at 8:30pm. The Bank of Tax Cheats hit upon many open nerves across the country by highlighting the lack of media balance when it comes to pointing the blame.
2.7 million viewers tuned in to see reporter Richard Bilton rightfully hound former group chairman of very naughty bank HSBC, Lord Green, about extremely dodgy practices, resulting in a 12% share.
Elsewhere at 9pm, a repeat of New Tricks brought in 3.2 million viewers to BBC One, while A Cook Abroad on BBC Two was watched by 1.6 million viewers.
Much less popular were the twisted culinary tastes on Channel 4 as a divorced chef offered up tips for love on Heston’s Recipe for Romance, which brought in 827,000 viewers and a 4% share.
Monday’s top four shows were, as usual, made up of soaps, with Emmerdale netting 6.9 million viewers and a 33% share at 7pm on ITV.
EastEnders, over on BBC One at 8pm, secured second place with 7.5 million viewers and a 32% share watching as alcoholic Lauren Branning decided to neck some whiskey while Dot Cotton popped out to get some heroin (they must have been preparing for the grim 9pm shows).
Coronation Street managed to bag the first and third spots with a double helping, kicking off from 7:30pm. 7.9 million viewers (a 36% share) tuned in for the first episode, with the audience falling to 7.2 million (a 30% share) for the second visit to Weatherfield at 8:30pm.
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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