TV Overnights: Paralympic Closing Ceremony peaks at 7.4m
The weekend’s schedule offered up plenty of options for everyone with sport, drama, Coldplay and double helping of The X Factor all fighting it out.
Friday
As usual, the main attraction of Friday night was EastEnders (7:30pm) on BBC One. Unusually, there was also an excess of sporting action to choose from (if screaming mockneys aren’t your thing). The Walford drama saw Shirley Carter attempt to make being miserable in to an Olympic scale achievement, single handedly breaking numerous world records for her work last week alone. 6 million viewers (a 28% share) tuned in for a spot of Friday night misery, securing the night’s biggest audience.
With the Paralympics wrapping up, there was a danger that sports fans may have a little too much time on their hands without the wall to wall coverage. Friday night allayed those fears and reminded us that Brazil 2014 is really just around the corner.
ITV1 brought us World Cup Qualifiers at 7:30pm which saw England face off against Moldova. Despite previous concerns regarding the quality of the pitch Roy Hodgson’s team sailed through the match at Zimbru Stadium in Chisinau. The entire programme brought in an average audience of 3.9 million viewers, peaking at 4.8 million just before the first half. An audience share of 18% stayed tuned throughout, with a result of 5-0 to England.
Meanwhile on BBC Two Gabby Logan guided viewers through the final event of the 2012 Diamond League (7pm) series in Belgium. The two hour event secured an average audience of 976,000 viewers (a 5% share) for the channel, as American Aries Merritt broke another world record in the 110 meter hurdles. Despite the added distractions, Paralympic Games 2012 Tonight (Channel 4, 7:30pm) performed well pulling in 2.4 million viewers.
After the glum experience that is a half an hour visit to E20, BBC One attempted to balance that out by throwing a lot of light comedy viewer’s way. Miranda kicked off at 8:30pm and was watched by 4 million viewers (a 21% share). In With the Flynns followed, with the audience dropping to 2.8 million.
The Irish have been trying to ignore Brendan O’Carroll and his Mrs Brown vehicle for decades now, in a vain hope that it would simply just go away. After putting up a strong front for so long, the last thing anyone expected was the massive success this side of the Irish Sea. A repeat of Mrs Brown’s Boys at 9:30pm brought in BBC One’s second largest audience, with 4.7 million viewers (21% share) tuning in to see Agnes worry about her body image.
Saturday
Doctor Who‘s biggest adversary doesn’t seem to be Dinosaurs on a Spaceship but the death throes of the unpredictable British summer. After dealing with some socially difficult Daleks in last week’s opening episode, the Doctor was dealing with the small issues of, you guessed it, dinosaurs. On a spaceship.
The episode was hit hard by Saturday’s balmy weather; there was a 17% fall in viewers week on week. Only 5.5 million people caught up with the Time Lord’s latest adventure, although the episode did score a decent audience share of 26%.
The fourth episode of series nine of The X Factor (8:10pm) followed immediately afterwards on ITV1. This week the judges were joined once again by former Pussycat Doll and sniffer-out of talent Nicole Scherzinger and the episode hit the exact same ’emotional’ beats of all those shows that have come before. 7.7 million viewers (a 34% share) viewed the show, down 2.1 million viewers when compared to the same episode of the previous series. It might yet be a little too early to report on the demise of the talent show; the episode grabbed a 34% audience share.
Slotted around the auditions was hyper flashy game show Red or Black (ITV1, 7:25pm & 9:10pm) with Ant and Dec on hand to keep viewers getting confused (contestants must bet on a red or black outcome). The first slice of tense fun brought in 3.3 million viewers, with the second part topping that with 3.7 million.
Sunday
If you were frustrated with only one hour of The X Factor auditions a week, then worry no more. Not content on manipulating simple people for entertainment just once a week, Simon Cowell’s talent machine wants to seep into Sunday’s schedule too.
Despite an intense critical mauling by the press (more than usual) this series has still proved to be a bit hit for ITV1. Although the audience may be down compared to previous series, the show is a huge draw for ITV1, attracting both Saturday and Sunday’s biggest audience across all channels. Viewers were down since Saturday, with a total of 7.4 million viewers tuning in for Sunday’s round of fabricated drama, resulting in a 28% share.
Over on BBC One, the gentile Inspector George Gently (8:30pm) was on the trail of a missing baby girl, who was snatched from her wealthy parent’s home. The father was played by The League of Gentlemen and Sherlock‘s Mark Gatiss so you just knew something odd was afoot. The detective drama suffered as a result of all the hullaballoo going on in East London with viewers down from last week’s 6 million to last night’s 4.8 million.
Which brings us the Paralympic Games 2012 Closing Ceremony on Channel 4. Despite the success of the Olympics Opening Ceremony, many were left unimpressed with how it all ended. Dusting the cobwebs off the Spice Girls, Pet Shop Boys and Ray Davies and then sending them around in circles in black cabs left many people indifferent. In short, the closing of the Paralympics had the potential to top the original.
Despite a sixteen song playlist from Coldplay and the presence of Rihanna the event pulled in an average audience of 5.6 million viewers who sat through the three hour event. Audience interest peaked at 9pm, with 7.4 million viewers (a 28% share) tuning in to Channel 4.
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.