TV Overnights: Chelsea’s victory peaks at 8m

Rural soap Emmerdale secured the biggest average audience on Wednesday night with 6.2 million viewers. The episode, which saw village bad girl Holly Barton struggle with the moreish nature of heroin, captured 31% of the available audience.

Regional News and Weather (6:30pm) proved to be BBC One’s big hit of the day, beating the channel’s later offerings of The One Show at 7pm (4.7 million) and Waterloo Road at 8pm (4.3 million). The local news programme pulled in 5.7 million viewers, resulting in an audience share of 30%.

Following Emmerdale on ITV1 was the Live UEFA Champions League match with coverage kicking off at 7:30pm. An average audience of 5.4 million stay tuned for the entire game, which saw Chelsea, under the watchful eye of caretaker manager Roberto Di Matteo, beating Napoli 4-1. Although the Yorkshire soap had the highest average audience of the night, viewer interest in the live game peaked in the last 15 minutes at just under eight million viewers (and a peak audience share of 36%). Of that peak audience, over one million were watching on ITV1 HD.

The third episode of The Fisherman’s Apprentice with Monty Halls (8pm) saw the marine biologist working on Cornwall’s largest crab-fishing boat and examining Britain’s attitudes towards sustainable fishing. It only managed to net 1.6 million viewers but it provided BBC Two’s biggest audience of the day.

Meanwhile, the penultimate episode of Masterchef (BBC One, 9pm) saw more challenges flung at the final three contestants – Tom, Shelina and Andrew – who must be a little relieved that the winner will finally be crowned tomorrow night. The cooking show went head-to-head with the second half of the live UEFA game and scored 4.6 million viewers. The audience for the Chelsea game shot up dramatically when Masterchef ended.

Over on Channel 4 at 9pm One Born Every Minute delivered all the usual drama from the maternity ward, earning an audience share of 12%. The episode, which featured a Mormon couple preparing for the birth of their second child, was watched by 2.9 million viewers.

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.