TV viewing round-up: April 2014

Britain’s Got Talent slayed all comers this month, topping the TV viewing chart with 3 million more viewers than the second most watched programme of the month, The Crimson Field.

Featuring acts such as dance group ‘Light Balance Illuminates’ and operatic boy band ‘Collabro’, the series 8 opener pulled in a strong 11.8 million viewers.

Meanwhile, medical period drama, The Crimson Field – starring Oona Chaplin, Hermione Norris and Suranne Jones – got off to a promising start.

Detailing the lives of medics and patients in a First World War field hospital, the opening episode pulled in an impressive 7.8 million viewers.

This helped give the period drama one of BBC One’s best débuts for a continuing drama, only behind Sherlock and Call The Midwife.

Manchester United’s final Champions League appearance (for a while) on ITV provided the fallen Premier League giants with a brief moment of glory in an otherwise terrible football season.

The first leg quarter final match, UEFA Champions League: Man United vs Bayern Munich, which finished with a 1-1 draw, attracted 6.2 million viewers across the whole two and a half hour programme duration.

Elsewhere, two ties featuring football specialist Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea gave ITV further good ratings figures. While the second leg quarter final match, UEFA Champions League: Chelsea vs PSG, was seen by 5.4 million viewers, the first leg of the semi final 0-0 bore draw UEFA Champions League: Atletico Madrid vs Chelsea probably had 5.5 million people wishing they’d tuned into something else.

The negative publicity surrounding BBC One’s adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn didn’t hinder the channel from achieving a sizeable audience.

Despite reported audio issues surrounding the first episode of the three-part mini series, the Gothic drama attracted an average audience of 7.3 million people.

Happy Valley – surely an oxymoron considering the grim content – was another ratings success for BBC One this month.

Coming from the pen of Sally Wainwright and starring a host of well-known names, such as Sarah Lancashire and Steve Pemberton, the Yorkshire-set drama kicked off with 7.6 million viewers.

ITV’s modern day spin on classic US drama The Fugitive, certainly proved popular with viewers in April.

Prey, starring John Simm as a detective on the run after being wrongly accused of murdering his wife and son, grabbed 7.1 million viewers for its opening episode.

Other popular shows this April included long-running cookery show Masterchef, which had 5.7 million people salivating over the various culinary dishes on display; the first episode of Claire Goose thriller Undeniable, which had 6.9 million viewers; the grand finale of The Voice, which pulled in 7.2 million; and the first case from the fourth series of Vera, which was watched by 7.1 million viewers.

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