TV Overnights: England victory peaks at 18m viewers
Last night, the England game provided a shot in the arm for the nation’s interest in Euro 2012 with the tournament once again proving to be the highlight of Tuesday night’s TV. Although the BBC’s little soap-that-could attracted an impressive audience despite the distraction over on ITV1.
Janine Butcher has made some questionable decisions in her life but nothing prepared the audience for her complete lack of compassion in last night’s episode. Viewers of EastEnders (BBC One, 7pm) have seen the Walford conniver make her fair share of enemies over the years but holding your wedding on the day of England’s final group game is simple unforgivable. Selfish as her decision was, you would want to ruin everyone else’s day if you had to marry Michael. Also, one couldn’t help shake the feeling that events wouldn’t go as planned; this was a soap wedding after all. 6 million viewers tuned in to see if the Alexis Carrington of E20 would go through with the deed, netting a 31% audience share. The soap didn’t suffer too much because of the game as it was scheduled against Adrian Chiles’s analysis on ITV1.
Janine has religiously ignored good advice over the years but last night the warnings came via her unborn baby, who caused a fuss and helped her mother to decide to call off the wedding. Good call Janine, now quieten down so we can watch the football on the other side.
It was hard to understand England’s tactics last night. On one hand, they were there to win. But on the other hand, I’m sure all the lads have been brought up well and taught to be courteous to their hosts. England v Ukraine kicked off at 7:45pm from Donbass Arena in the Ukraine and things were all very polite in the first half. Thankfully, Wayne Rooney got bored 48 minutes in and scored one of them goals for England. The entire England v Ukraine programme (including the pre-match analysis and the actual game) pulled in an average audience of 12.6 million viewers (an impressive 50% share) and peaked at 18 million viewers (a 62% share) around 9:15pm.
Meanwhile, over in the soap and football-free land that is BBC Two a repeat of The Hairy Bikers brought the channel its biggest audience of the day. Stretching the ‘fat cooks with motorbikes’ idea to its limit The Hairy Bikers: Mum Knows Best features the dietary challenged friends driving about the UK, cooking things. The twist for this series was that some ‘star mums’ would pop up now and again with recipes. It’s nice to see a brilliant idea evolve naturally. 1.5 million viewers watched the episode originally broadcast in January 2012.
Last night’s episode of True Love brought us Billie Piper in yet another role that reads like fodder for the Daily Mail. The series focuses on the formations of illicit relationships and the knock-on effects that carry over to different characters in further instalments. The third episode saw a teacher played by Billy Piper fall for one of her students (Kaya Scodelario from Skins), after being jilted by a married man and documented the emotional fallout. Last night’s audience mirrored that of Monday’s, both of which pulled in 2.8 million, down from 3.1 million on Sunday.
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.