TV Overnights: Sunita’s sexy time adventure secures 8m viewers for ITV1
A night of non-stop rollercoaster soap action kicked off on ITV1 at 7pm with the first instalment of Emmerdale. The episode, which pulled in 7 million viewers (a 34% share), dealt with the very serious issue of irritating parents.
Even man of god, Ashley Thomas, has his patience pushed to the limit and, as he hasn’t been venting particularly well lately, his elderly father ended up getting a happy slap. The fact that this storyline is completely uncharacteristic of the Vicar shouldn’t point out dodgy writing, instead it should serve as something for everyone to think about.
Over on BBC One at 7:30pm was another eventful trip to Walford. Roxy Mitchell’s permanent state of distress must be grating all those around her. Kudos, then, to Derek Branning who sent Alfie out of the square for the day (can you imagine?) and convinces Roxy that the man she’s in love with this month is in some serious danger. 7.7m people watched Roxy fret even more than usual and finally confess her feelings to Alfie upon his safe return from the outside world, which he’d stay in forever if he had any sense. EastEnders grabbed a 37% audience share.
It was straight back up to the Dales at 8pm and the Vicar’s missus was catching on to her husband’s new medium for stress release. And she wasn’t happy. With poor old Sandy ushered off to a safe house for elderly soap characters Laurel sat her husband down and attempted to calm his violent tendencies with old natter. The second episode of Emmerdale built upon the earlier audience, with a total of 7.3 million viewers watching, but the audience share lowered to 31%.
Sticking to ITV1, the usual drama on the cobbles followed at 8pm with Coronation Street securing a 33% share. Poor old Sunita wasn’t sure what was going on with the extra-marital love life but it would be sensible to lock up your middle-aged sons just in case. There was some close contact as Karl helped Sunita out behind the bar and their ‘situation’ must have been obvious even to the fruit machine. The soap was the most watched show of Thursday night with 8 million viewers tuning in to see Stella, Emily and Rita sort through Betty’s unmentionables and finding (dum-dum-dum!) a will from the Weatherfield of yesteryear.
Now that we’ve collectively exorcised our Titanic demons through the onslaught of dodgy re-enactments (for another 100 years, at least) last night we turned our attention back to 9/11 to fill the void. If you were worried that the onslaught of fresh audio and visual recordings from that day in 2001 had dried up then 9/11: The Lost Tapes (Channel 4, 9pm) was for you. Featuring an array of newly released recordings, the documentary captured the channel’s biggest audience of the day with 1.8 million viewers.
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.