TV Overnights: ITV’s Emmerdale trumps BBC’s EastEnders. Again.
EastEnders (BBC One, 7pm) took another blow last night as the heat drove some viewers away from their TVs – with a few others seen heading towards the Dales.
Only a fictional place as miserable as Walford could turn something positive like the exceptional summer sunshine into a negative. It seems that over the last few week the sun has only come out whenever EastEnders is on.
Only 5.7 million people watched as Kat dealt with the sweltering atmosphere the only way she knew how – by getting her drink on. The sight of the market trader falling around drunk at her ex’s engagement party, grabbing on to bad boy Carl to for some of the bad kind of attention, resulted in a (relatively impressive) 33% share.
Given the exhausting weather across the country, these figures would have been all acceptable had underdog Emmerdale (ITV, 7pm) not managed to exceed that audience half an hour earlier. The first of two trips to the most hazardous spot in the UK saw Cameron struggle to keep his secrets under wraps.
5.9 million viewers tuned in at 7pm, making it the most watched show of the day and bringing in a 35% share. Debbie and Cameron were under suspicion in the second visit at 8pm, with 5.6 million viewers watching – the third biggest audience of the day, behind EastEnders.
In between the rural dramatics, ITV concerned itself with the Bulgarians and Romanians who will soon come rushing onto the shores, in the first of two Tonight specials. Coming to the UK? (7:30pm) travelled to the two countries, whose right to work restrictions will soon be lifted, to calm viewers’ fears.
Despite a little competition from the second episode of Emmerdale at 8pm, Celebrity Masterchef redeemed itself in its second half, eventually pulling in the largest audience from 8:30pm onwards.
The first episode of the series on Wednesday was watched by 4.7 million viewers, but still the soap competition saw the audience fall to 3.8 million viewers. A 20% share tuned in to see a Sugababe and somebody’s ex-wife slug it out in a real kitchen.
It’s as if the schedules knew the pointlessness of last night’s line up – unusually none of the 9pm shows even made it into the top eight of the day. The fact that Nick Knowles’s face and DIY SOS (BBC One, 9pm) secured the biggest audience in that slot says it all.
After receiving a bit of a dodgy portrait the previous night on ITV, North London’s Enfield was given another chance to shine as an army of decorators popped up, all with the intention of transforming the mundane into something that makes the most of the colour palette on a HD TV. 2.9 million viewers tuned in for the do-gooders’ cathartic makeover, resulting in a 15% share.
Meanwhile on ITV, the second alarmist Tonight show of the day airedas reporter Jonathan Maitland predicted our doom. On the back of the overpopulation issue covered earlier, Throwaway Britain (9pm) focused on our waste and how we’re struggling to get rid of it. 1.6 million viewers (an 8% share) tuned in for the cautionary tale, with 102,000 choosing to view the landfills in beautiful HD.
At the same time Channel 4 attempted to stir the pot with another provokingly named documentary. The first of three parts, How to Get a Council House (9pm), spent an hour explaining that it’s actually quite difficult – if you’re in Tower Hamlets anyway. Surprisingly, 1.7 million viewers (the broadcaster’s biggest hit of the day) tuned in to find this out, bringing in a 9% share.
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.