TV Overnights: 3/4 of a million viewers watch viewers watching TV
ITV’s Thursday prime time schedule was dominated with elongated soapy glamour and a spot of amateur football dramatics, with Emmerdale heralding the end of daytime TV and ushering in the quality of prime time at 6:45pm.
Fans of rural hijinks were treated to an hour-long visit to the Dales’ most dangerous village, with an average audience of 6 million viewers lapping it all up. An audience share of 28% tuned in to see Brenda Walker figure out how to deal with her medical test results.
It was straight over to White Hart Lane afterwards for ITV’s coverage of UEFA Europa League Live (7:45pm). As Adrian Childs was all tucked up in bed on his night off, it was up to Matt Smith to guide us through the complicated goal of getting the ball in the net.
Tottenham faced off against Inter Milan in the final game of the first 16 leg matches, or something similar to that description. The game kicked off at 8:05pm and it wasn’t long before the home team’s determination became apparent. The audience peaked at just under 5 million viewers very early into the game as Bale and Sigurdsson scored at eight and 18 minutes respectively.
Things remained calm for the rest of the first half until Tottenham’s Jan Vertonghen came along in the 53rd minute and secured a victory for his team. On average, 4 million viewers stayed tuned for the entire coverage, with Inter Milan’s panic tactics pulling in an 18% share.
Meanwhile on BBC One, worried viewers caught up with the latest adventures of unstoppable crying machine, Lola. It would seem a few EastEnders fans were caught in the gravity of the game as a lower than usual turnout tuned in to see how long Lola would remain on the run with her baby.
But it wasn’t all snotty tears and forced performances – love, or the Walford equivalent, was pungent in the air. 6.4 million viewers tuned in to see whether the Sharon/Phil combo or the Ian/Denise snogathon disturbed them more, with Twitter exploding as a result. Well…a little.
EastEnders‘ limp performance didn’t even have the excuse of competing with Coronation Street last night. Instead, an interesting trend become a little clearer. There seems to be at least two million casual E20 fans who will abandon the soap for football at a moment’s notice.
Could it be that the BBC’s flagship soap has been competing with the wrong shows all this time?
Later, in the dizzying heights of the 9pm slot, Mayday (BBC One) finally came to a close after its marathon sprint. Over the last five nights millions of viewers have been inundated with dreamy visuals of a broken community, warring partners, plenty of mysterious posturing, a multitude of ‘evils’ being thrown around and some annoying as fook teenagers.
The finale, in which it seemed everyone was just a little bit guilty, saw its audience jump a little from the 4 million viewers that have settled in throughout the week. A 20% share of the 9pm TV universe tuned in to see the story wind up, even if it wasn’t to everyone’s satisfaction.
4.6 million viewers stared sullenly at their television, realising there were five precious hours of their lives that they would never get back.
Over on Channel 4, another mystery was unfolding in the form of What Destroyed the Hindenburg? (9pm). Personally, my first guess would be a fuel explosion. Despite the bloody size of the airship wreckage, there was probably more conclusive evidence lying around the character’s dustbins in Mayday.
1.2 million people tuned in to learn that 35 of the 97 people on board actually survived. A audience share of 5% watched as the group of experts obsessively hypostatised the reasons behind the iconic disaster.
Over on BBC Two, a documentary crew spent a little time with a ‘secretive’ religious sect in Canada, hoping to pick up a few tips for the afterlife. How to Get to Heaven with the Hutterites (9pm) followed a deeply traditional commune that prides itself on shunning the outside world.
Yet, for some reason, they had no problem allowing a documentary crew into their lives for four months. Everyone’s an attention seeker these days, even those closest to God. The interesting look at life with the deeply ignorant pulled in 1.3 million viewers and a 6% share.
Speaking of hell – Channel 5 gave us the conclusion of the crime show that makes Broadchurch, Riper Street etc. look like a spasmastic song and dance sequence from Glee. The final two hour episode of Jack Taylor (9pm) saw the troubled Irish private detective tasked with hunting down a malicious nun who viciously abused woman in the infamous Magdalene work houses. So far, so darker than a black hole.
The harsh issues and refreshingly realism might have put a few people off but Jack’s final adventure into darkness captivated 848,000 viewers and a 4% share.
Later, Channel 4 debuted a new concept for late night television directed at the fatally lonely. Gogglebox (10pm) sees ‘viewers’, sit in front of their TV and REACT DRAMATICALLY to the week’s television highlights. Sounds amazing, right?
Who doesn’t want to watch failed reality show contestants watch TV instead of watching it themselves? 732,000 viewers tuned in for the experience, no doubt recording themselves commenting on the commentators. Things just got meta.
The ground-breaking show was about as enjoyable as watching TV with a bunch of idiots who simply won’t shut up. Remember when watching things attentively and in silence was the whole point? One for the twitter degeneration, really.
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.