TV Overnights: Vera beats Silent Witness, pulling in 5m for ITV1
Second episode of the detective show made another dent in Silent Witness’s audience.
Friday
Friday night saw the usual array of programmes successfully pull the majority of the UK’s audience into soap land. After a long week, what better way to let off some tension than watching people that make your life seem positively glamorous by comparison? The first trip of the night to Coronation Street brought the night’s biggest audience (7.8 million viewers) as Sally had another good whinge about Spawn of Molly gradually crawling its way into her life. 37% of the available audience watched as Sally lamented the fact her husband’s baggage was making her second guess their reconciliation.
Afterwards on BBC One, the car crash that is Bianca’s life continued to slide out of control. That Friday feeling is pretty hard to come by in E20, especially when you’ve been threatened by your landlady, caught stealing electricity and fired by Ian Beale. Despite knowing everybody across the 10 square metres that make up Albert Square, the struggling mum thought it’d be a good idea to rob a market stall. Surprisingly her stealth skills weren’t up to much and Bianca was caught red-handed. 7.3 million viewers tuned in to EastEnders (8pm) and watched the former Ms. Jackson kick a man in the face and make a run for it.
The second episode of Coronation Street (8:30pm) failed to bring back the earlier audience but still managed a 32% audience share. 7.3 million viewers watched as Kylie’s transformation into her older sister Becky was almost complete. Afterwards Piers Morgan popped up to brighten up our TV screens in another in-depth gaze at a famous person. Bringing together his skills as an investigator and interviewer for humanity’s benefit Piers Morgan’s Life Stories (9pm) shone the light of truth onto Carol Vorderman’s pleasant face. More than happy to drag us through all the private moments of her life, Carol and Piers did what they do best and the interview pulled in an audience of 4.4 million viewers.
Saturday
Saturday evening was all about the fierce battle for the Crown of Light Entertainment as the nation’s two favourite talent shows attempted to draw blood. The Voice UK (BBC One, 7pm), still recovering from last week’s accusations that the show intentionally over ran by three minutes, launched into its first live show on Saturday and secured an audience share of 42% for the one and a half hour running time. This episode also marked the first time that the public could have their say, as Tom Jones and will.i.am’s teams went head to head for survival, although this interactive element didn’t stop the audience falling by 600,000 viewers from last week. An average audience of 9.3 million tuned in to the episode, featuring an absolutely horrific opening of will.i.am and Danny singing U2’s Beautiful Day. Viewers peaked at 10 million around 8pm but saw a dip in the final fifteen minutes as viewers realised they had to wait until Sunday to see someone’s dreams being destroyed.
After taking a knocking the last three weeks Britain’s Got Talent (ITV1, 8:30pm) snatched back the coveted crown, with the episode focusing on the sixth week of auditions. This week’s episode was the usual mix of the bizarre and unusual and didn’t have a live show or similar novelty up its sleeve. It is possible the shorter running time (compared to The Voice UK) helped the show secure a bigger average audience of 9.4 million viewers (a 35% audience share).
Sunday
Sunday saw Silent Witness (9pm) make a new enemy in the form of ITV1’s doddering detective Vera (8pm). It felt like the BBC One forensic drama was being attacked from all sides with the Monday episodes feeling a dent in audience since ITV1’s Scott & Bailey began its run a number of weeks ago. Sunday episodes of Silent Witness usually pull in a healthy 6 million viewers but the arrival of Brenda Blethyn’s Vera last week saw yesterday’s audience fall to 4.8 million viewers (a 19% share). Can Dr. Nikki and her team of super pathologists pull it together for the series 15 finale next week?
Despite the presence of adverts and a longer running time, the second episode in the current series of Vera beat its main rival by securing an average audience of 5 million viewers. The episode saw Vera attempting to solve the murder of a social worker in her trademark unorthodox manner, pulling in an 18.5% audience share.
Earlier on BBC One was The Voice UK Results, which saw both Tom Jones and will.i.am losing an act each. 35% of the available audience watched as the hopefuls were sent home, resulting in 8.6 million viewers for the 25 minute show.
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.