TV Overnights: Corrie’s murder mystery pulls in 8m
The UK’s TV audience is still under the spell of Coronation Street’s latest whodunit storyline with last night’s episode pulling in 8 million viewers. The episode, which went out at 8:30pm, took a shocking twist as Peter Barlow confessed to Frank’s murder and secured an audience share of 33% in the process.
Earlier Live UEFA Europa League Football provided Channel 5’s largest audience of the day. Coverage of the Athletic Bilbao v Man United game began at 5:30pm (kick-off at 6pm) and managed an average audience of 2.7 million. As usual, casual viewers were drawn in in the final minutes; a peak audience of 4 million viewers tuned in to see Man United fall out of the running for the UEFA Cup in a 2-1 defeat.
From 7pm the schedule was cluttered with soaps, kicking off with Emmerdale on ITV1. After the Barton’s scattered John’s ashes Holly finally cracked and treated herself to a little bit of heroin. The first instalment of the night was watched by 6.3 million viewers.
Jealous of all the attention poured upon Weatherfield recently, EastEnders (BBC One, 7:30pm) put the cogs in motion for its very own impending murder mystery. 7.6 million viewers empathised with Phil Mitchell as he disowned his son Ben, pulling in 33% of the available audience.
It was straight back up to the Yorkshire Dales at 8pm for the second episode of Emmerdale, as the audience grew by 608,000 viewers from the earlier slice of drama. 6.9 million people tuned in as Holly’s relaxation method backfired slightly and she was rushed to hospital, resulting in a 29% share of the audience.
After eight weeks the finale of Masterchef (BBC One, 9pm) was finally upon us as the search for the UK’s best amateur chef came to an end (for now). 5.6 million viewers were caught up in the mixture of suspense and Mauritian octopus salad. 24% of the available audience watched the close of the series in which Shelina was crowned the winner.
Up against Masterchef on ITV1 was new drama Love Life, staring Downton Abbey’s Rob James-Collier. The drama, about a man who returns from a year of traveling to find his ex-girlfriend mysteriously pregnant, bagged 3.9 million viewers (a 17% share).
Over on BBC Two at 10pm the second episode of The Sarah Millican Television Programme brought the channel’s biggest audience of the night. 1.6 million people tuned in to see the comedian put her spin on current TV trends.
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.