TV Overnights: Lord Sugar’s hoard of probing underlings bags 6.7m viewers for The Apprentice
Last night’s midweek television saw the final five hopefuls of The Apprentice (BBC One, 9pm) face the ultimate challenge so far as they were tasked with not having some kind of mental breakdown on camera.
The remnants of the original 15 desperados that showed up on Lord Sugar’s doorstep twelve weeks ago, were put through a series of psychological prods – designed to crush their souls and turn them into the perfect, passive business partner for their grey-whiskered overlord.
As the ninth series approached its climax, Wednesday’s penultimate episode saw the survivors stripped of their dignity in the intensive interview process (although this has never been much of an issue for the pantomime characters on the show).
6.7 million viewers tuned in for a bit of wish fulfilment, witnessing the vindictive interviewers burst each candidate’s once impenetrable bubble of nonsense.
Amongst the countless babble of spin and pain-inducing soundbites, watching the final five facing reality and harsh truths was basically like watching Superman eat a bowl of Kryptonite for breakfast – pure pleasure.
The prickly semi-final easily walked away with the 9pm slot (3.8 million more viewers than its ITV rival) and picked up a 29% audience share.
Speaking of underachievers – Love and Marriage (ITV’s primetime offering) came to a swift close last night as the sixth and final episode wrapped things up for our ageing Lotharios.
The drama series, which belongs to the increasingly rare genre of programmes aimed at people who don’t aspire to be on Hollyoaks, focused on a put-upon mother’s rebirth as a 60 year old singleton.
The drama about dusty love (an unholy hybrid of a traditional late in life British drama and Modern Family) managed to secure a consistent audience throughout its run, with an audience of 2.9 million viewers (a 13% share) tuning in to see if the Paradise’s could save their marriage.
Channel 4’s biggest hit of the day arrived at the same time, as the epic third series of 24 Hours in A&E (9pm) trundled on – it’s like the writers can’t stop coming up with more and more new ways that stupid people can injure themselves. Last night’s disinfectant-reeking action pulled in just under 2 million viewers and a 9% share.
An hour earlier ITV struck teatime gold with the return of animal centric documentary, The Zoo (8pm). The show, which looks at the adventures had by staff at London Zoo, took in 4.2 million viewers, with BBC One’s alarmist magazine show Your Money Their Tricks (8pm) netting 3.3 million.
Earlier, ITV celebrated an hour of top notch soap offerings with Emmerdale getting the overly dramatic ball rolling at 7pm. The midweek visit to the notorious village saw Rhona overcome her recent struggles by floating on a cloud of unadulterated happiness as a side effect of her self-medicating hobby.
The past few months have seen the soap maintain a popularity that threatened to overthrow BBC’s EastEnders but recent weeks have seen audiences drop again. 5.5 million people (a 33% share) tuned in to to see Rhona’s blissful exploits – relieved to see a character in a soap happy for once.
Next up on the schedule was the big daddy of soap land, Coronation Street (ITV, 7:30pm). Last night’s waltz around Weatherfield brought us another dose of unhealthy existing relationships while setting up future ones. 7.9 million viewers tuned in to see Sally Webster get her flirting on with terrible parent Tim, sending a shockwave of shivers through the country.
Despite ignoring the biggest storyline the soap has delivered in years (aliens have been abducting long-serving male residents of the Street like Ken and Kevin, yet no one seems to notice) the soap managed to attract an audience share of 39%, becoming the most watched show of the day.
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.