TV Overnights: Lord Sugar leaves a good taste in the mouths of 6.5m
The Apprentice earned the highest amount of viewers on Wednesday night, scoring a 26% audience share for BBC One at 9pm. As week three of the mishap sitcom kicked off, the estrogen levels were dangerously low after Team Sterling faced the cull after failing two tasks in a row. But there was a twist to last night’s tale! Duane took control of the ladies’ team and Kate was chosen to lead the men down the garden path.
Darth Sugar dropped his young apprentices headfirst into the sticky and risky world of condiments, with each team asked to create and flog a new creation. 6.5 million viewers tuned in to see the candidates make fools of themselves, with Kate dragging Michael into the boardroom over the failure of their niche product: a ketchup named ‘Bellissimo’.
Earlier on ITV1 Adam was riddled with guilt as those around him tried to make sense of Aaron’s supposed pyromaniac tendencies. Emmerdale (7pm) brought the biggest audience of the night for the commercial station as 6.3 million (a 31% share) tuned in to see how exactly the friend’s porky pies are going to play out.
It was straight over to Stamford Bridge afterwards with Adrian Chiles presenting the pre match discussion for the latest Live UEFA Champions League game. Chelsea v Benefice kicked off at 7:45pm with 4.7 million people watching the entire programme. The game ended in a 2-1 victory to Chelsea with Raul Meireles scoring the third goal of the match in the 90th minute, helping the audience reach 5.3 million.
Giles Coren finally returned to our screens with new series Our Food airing on BBC Two at 8pm. The series, which last night attracted 1.9 million viewers, sees Giles and his jobbing journo mates travel around the UK exploring the origin and history of the nation’s food. In the first episode the food critic travelled to Norfolk where he bumped into BBC regular James Wong, who smiled a lot.
As Waterloo Road‘s (BBC One, 8pm) seventh series promises to come to an end in the coming weeks the drama had no sign of letting up last night which showed student Josh dealing with a few problems. Running low on mental health medication, struggling with exams and dealing with difficult classmates does not make a good combination, especially if you study at Waterloo Road. Throw in a wedding to the mix and you’ve enough elements to attract a dedicated audience of 4.4 million viewers. The episode which saw Josh convince himself that he caught the plague secured a 19% audience share.
Channel 4’s highlight of the day was the conclusion of the third series of One Born Every Minute, in which midwife Linda Abbott retired after 38 years. Fittingly enough, this final episode saw her deliver her last baby and was watched by 2.5 million viewers.
The Apprentice: You’re Fired! (10pm) proved to be to be BBC Two’s big hit of the day attracting 2.4 million viewers. The show, which captured a 12% audience share, featured Jenny Éclair and Levi Roots helping Dara Ó Briain delve through the murky waters of failure.
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.