TV Overnights: Latest series of Sugar’s cringe cycle brings in 6m for BBC One
Despite the fact that recent legal actions confirmed the show to be as transparently vacant as we all suspected, Tuesday night brought the brand new series of Lord Sugar’s desperate hunt for cringe inducing sound bites.
If you like your business executives slightly deluded and prone to speak reactionary and bewildering jargon, then this is the show for you. Last night at 9pm saw The Apprentice‘s 9th series kick off with the usual aplomb – sweeping shots of shiny buildings, bombastic music and candidates with even shinier teeth.
You’d be forgiven for thinking each of the 16 painfully smug hopefuls had the cure for cancer hidden under their belts as opposed to the reality that they’re simply aiming to give up the hard slog and attempt to carve out a paper thin career based on their ‘media-friendly’ personalities alone. One contender, Uzma, even boasted her own brand of luxury make up, despite looking like a cold corpse.
Despite knowing better, a 26% audience share watched as the collective confidence amounted for very little as they scrambled about the city, flogging the usual tat. Just over 6 million viewers tuned in for the entire episode, 400,000 less than last year’s series opener.
Meanwhile, ITV attempted to counteract the Sugar magic by rejigging an old horse within an inch of its life. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: People Play (9pm) isn’t your grandfather’s version of the long running quiz show – this revolutionary variety gives power to the ogling masses by allowing them to play at home.
Using the new-fangled internet thing, second screening and those apps everyone’s always banging on about, this plays out just like the familiar international format you know and love, but with an internet leader board popping up every now and again to remind you you’d be rubbish even if you ever did manage to get on the show.
The liberal sprinkling of fairy dust didn’t do much to help Chris Tarrant drum up excitement with the viewing masses with the rebooted show only managing a 9% share with an average audience of 2 million viewers watching the entire episode.
Over on Channel 4, Mary Portas was back for a brand new series of marketing guff and smack talk as the one-woman Apprentice show looked to gentrify Roman Road in London’s East End. Mary Queen of the High Street (9pm) saw the no-nonsense retail droid stumble around various shops barking orders at staff before being moved on by security.
Just over 1 million viewers (a 5% share) tuned in to see Mary suggest the addition of boutique shops, gourmet food stalls et al. in an attempt to pull in a more affluent base of consumers than the usual riff raff that are so hard on the eyes.
Earlier on ITV, Emmerdale (7pm) ramped the tension up a bit as resident murderer Cameron let his hobby stress him out a bit. Just over 6 million viewers (a 34% share) tuned in to see the exhumer lash out at Gennie in the Woolpack as he tried to flee the village before the Feds caught up with him.
Straight afterwards, EastEnders (BBC One, 7:30pm) treated Roxy to some mid-week excitement by way of an attempted robbery. A dodgy builder with a funny accent had the Queen Vic’s tills in his eyes after a very busy day in the pub while love rival Kat thwarted one extremely obvious attempt at robbery, poor old Roxy was left all alone by the safe when he returned for a second go.
Along with Emmerdale, EastEnders dealt a lower than usual audience but still managed to attract a 35% share and 6.6 million viewers – resulting in Wednesday’s biggest hit of the day.
Holby City pulling in 4.8 million viewers at 8pm meant that the BBC’s tea/prime time trifecta of successful shows helped the channel rule the night, as BBC One secured the largest audience share from 7:30pm onwards.
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.