Thriller The Honourable Woman debuts with 2.1m on BBC Two
For the second consecutive night in a row the nation’s TVs were mercifully football free, allowing viewers a bit more breathing space to catch up with all the soap, drama and feather-weight factual programming that made up Thursday night’s schedule.
The first in a double bill of Emmerdale (ITV) kicked off yesterday evening’s entertainment as the locals dealt with the aftermath of that drunken, hand-mangling accident at 7pm. 5.5 million viewers (a 33% share) – the day’s second biggest audience – tuned in to see Andy Sugden’s very bad day after a drunken Adam Barton got a little too enthusiastic with a hay baler.
The second visit to the UK’s bloodiest little village at 8pm saw the audience fall down to 4.1 million viewers as Andy was rushed to hospital, representing a 21% share.
After being postponed on Tuesday night, EastEnders returned last night in a bloated form, treating viewers to a whole sixty minutes of turbulent mockney angst. Unfortunately for the residents of Walford, the latter half of the soap clashed with second episode of ITV’s Emmerdale, with viewers of the East End soap plummeting towards the closing minutes.
A total of 5.3 million viewers tuned in to see the latest bout of shouting, poverty and misunderstandings resulting in the day’s third biggest show and a 28% share.
Straight up afterwards over on ITV, it was time for dominant soap Coronation Street (8:30pm) to once again outperform its rivals, although it was a bit of a hollow victory. Even though the Weatherfield soap walked away with yesterday’s number one spot, Coronation Street was watched by only 5.8 million viewers, a sure signpost that the summer season is in full swing (well, apart from the sunny weather).
In total, a 29% share watched as Gail’s concerned boys, David and Nick, popped around to Michael’s (Les Dennis) grotty bedsit to warn him off their mum (although if he knew her relationship history he’d probably run a mile).
Over on Channel 4, Blokey and Approachable TM professional George Clarke was busy poking around people’s special places in the latest episode of budget Grand Designs.
Last night’s George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces (Channel 4, 8pm) saw the architect visit Texas and er… North London for some inspirational mini-builds, proving to be Channel 4’s biggest hit of the day with 1.3 million viewers and a 7% share.
At 9pm, more unfamous people battled it out in the kitchen on Celebrity MasterChef, which secured the biggest prime time audience for BBC One, with 3.6 million viewers and an 18% share.
At the same time BBC Two kicked off a highly ambitious new series, bagging Maggie Gyllenhaal for the lead role for the political thriller The Honourable Woman (9pm). 2.1 million viewers watched the first of eight episodes, which introduced the tale of Middle East politics, shadowy government figures and lots of murders, resulting in an 18% share.
Meanwhile, ITV was allowing viewers to peak behind the curtains of money’s ugly confidence in Inside Asprey: Luxury by Royal Appointment (9pm).
The show, which is the latest in a long line of exclusive luxury shops that seem to be queuing up to get the ‘irreverent’ documentary treatment, focused on the dedicated ‘kooky’ staff – or so the incessant plinkity-plonk music would have us believe.
2.8 million tuned in to see the Bond Street store change its traditional tactics and desperately chase foreign oil and gas money to buy their one-of-a-kind wares, netting a 14% 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.
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