TV Overnights: EastEnders and Silk secure Tuesday night for BBC One
God bless Phil Mitchell’s energy. Keeping gossip and suspicion contained in a place like Albert Square must be an exhausting way to spend your life. The vast majority of us mere mortals would have thrown Ben to the coppers by now, but not his father. Now that Ian has wondered into the transcendental wastelands of the mind, like Alexander Supertramp with a dressing gown, Phil Mitchell’s next venture in psychotic mental brutality is focused on Lucy Beale. 6.6 million viewers, the largest audience of the day, watched EastEnders at 8pm, as Uncle Phil offered Lucy his help to find her missing father, capturing a 35% share. The channel continued to pull in a strong audience all night with Holby City at 8pm securing 4.8 million viewers.
ITV1’s contribution to the 9pm slot came across like a royal Grand Designs but instead of the middle-class thinking lady’s crumpet, Kevin McCloud, we got nobody’s crumpet Alan Titchmarch. Five years ago unemployed layabout Charlie from London took out a massive loan (£20 million) to give his fixer-upper, Dumfries House in Ayrshire, a new lick of paint. Will the local resident like what he’s done with the place? Will the modern aesthetic fit snugly into the surrounding countryside? Will there be a dramatic problem with cash flow in the last fifteen minutes? 2 million viewers tuned in to get the answer to these questions and more on Prince Charles: The Royal Restoration, netting a 9.1 audience share.
Over on BBC One the second series of legal drama Silk continued at 9pm and captured a 22% audience share. The third episode in the latest run saw slimy Clive, played by former Spook Rupert Penny-Jones, refuel his passion for law by prosecuting three even slimier Oxford students for sexual assault. 4.8 million viewers watched as the drunken toffs made Clive look slightly better by comparison, resulting in a 22% share. The episode was down half a million viewers week on week.
Earlier on ITV1 Emmerdale brought the channel’s biggest audience of the day as Chas and Cameron continue to ooze class, among other things. So they’ve been at it behind Debbie’s (her, of the ironed hair) back for a while now, including a dalliance on the beer-stained floor of the Woolpack cellar, of all places. 5.7 million people saw the couple step in up a notch and move the action to the pub’s public toilets.
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.