TV Overnights: EastEnders secures 8.4m viewers for BBC One
Tuesday night’s viewing was once again dominated by soaps with EastEnders peaking at 8.4 million viewers, the highest audience of the night. Yesterday’s drama, which featured a surprise proposal for Heather, garnered an average audience share of 37%.
While BBC One secured the highest amount of viewers in the prime time slot, ITV1 had the highest audience share half an hour before. Emmerdale, peaking at over 7 million viewers in the 7pm slot, had a 32% share. Although, like EastEnders, the audience did wain slightly as the episode progressed; down 267,000 viewers in the second half.
BBC One kept a firm grip on the audience share as Holby City banked 22% of viewers for the 8pm slot. The Casualty spin-off, now in its thirteenth year, had an average of 5.3 million viewers throughout the sixty minute running time.
River Monsters, the documentary series featuring ‘extreme angler’ Jeremy Wade, went up against EastEnders at 7:30pm and lost. The episode, which featured Jeremy wading through the Australian outback to capture an 18 foot long fish, had an average audience of 2.4 million viewers. Escape-athon The Exit List, presented by Matthew Alright , fared a little worse; the gameshow pulled in 1.7 million viewers for its sixty minute run.
Hotel inspector Alex Polizzi returned to our screens (the 8pm slot on BBC Two) this time vowing to fix ailing family businesses. Alex Polizzi – The Fixer beat competition from The Exit List, opening with 2 million viewers and gaining an extra 1.8 million throughout the show.
BBC One continued strong into the night with new drama Prisoners’ Wives peaking at 5 million viewers in the 9pm slot. BBC News at Ten carried on with a 23% audience share followed by Match of the Day, the latest transfer news bringing in an average of 3.2 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.