TV Overnights: ‘Opengategate’ scandal helps Emmerdale win 5.7m for ITV1
New bad boy of the Dales, Robbie Lawson, unleashed hell on Emmerdale (ITV1, 7pm) last night, sending Home Farm and the village into a state of terror. The pint-sized God of Mischief brought Katie Sugden’s London plans to a standstill in one fell swoop. Like the Great Village Fire of ’11 and the Disastrous Plane Crash of ’93 before it, it would be some time before residents would ever be the same again.
Robbie was reduced to drastic efforts to protect his estranged mum Megan’s pride and stop Katie going to the festival meeting in London. These thoughts led him to an unthinkable, hideous act. Robbie calmly walked up to a gate in Home Farm…and left it open. The shocking events led Emmerdale to become the most watched show on Wednesday, securing 5.7 million viewers. An audience share of 32% watched on as Katie had to deal with the horror of rounding up a couple of horses.
The drama was slightly more severe later on BBC One. The second episode on the current series of Who Do You Think You Are? (9pm) provided plenty of value for money as Master Chef‘s Gregg Wallace was reduced to an emotional wreck, at a frequency previously unseen in the genealogy programme. The first five minutes gave us an enthusiastic and chipper Wallace, eager to find out whatever became of his deserter great-grandfather and his mysteriously posh great-great-grandmother.
As it turns out a lot happened to them – a sequential series of tragic events blighted them throughout their lives. As Wallace learned the truth you could actually see a little bit of his soul breaking. There were many twists and turns on this journey – Wallace’s distant family lived through every bleak event ever documented in EastEnders. The dose of misery porn improved on last week’s slightly happier series nine opening, up 100,000 viewers. A total average audience of 4.8 million people tuned in to see Wallace declare he just wanted to go home and hug his dog, securing a 21% share.
Hot on the heels of Emmerdale was lazy talking head show The Corrie Years (ITV1, 7:30pm) which showed us old clips and then some people talked about what we just saw. I guess it would be wasteful for ITV not to raid 52 years worth of archives every now and again but it has only been two years since the 50th anniversary and there is only so much we can be reminded about Sarah-Louise’s shock pregnancy in 2000 (yes, we’re old). A solid 3.6 million (a 20% share) viewers took yet another stroll down Weatherfield’s memory lane, reliving all the events in the North’s most dangerous postcode.
Actually, scratch that; the fictional county of Midsomer sounds like a far more dangerous place. ITV offered up a two hour repeat of Midsomer Murders from October 2011 in the prime time slot. DCI John and his bezzie mate DS Ben were investigating the disappearance of a tax inspector. Turns out he was face down in a barrel of cider all along; and not in a binge drinking kind of way. The dependable scheduling attracted 3.3m viewers to ITV1 and provided a 16% share.
Over on Channel 5, permanently duck-faced Jasmine became the first person to be evicted from the current series of Celebrity Big Brother. The catch up show at 9pm reached just over the 2 million mark with live reactions at 10:30pm netting 1.2 million people.
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.