TV Viewing Summary W/E 12/07/98

A lot of ‘special’ programmes on television this week, even if the content of the programmes themselves is nothing special. ITV decided that the best way it could get viewers to tune into their coverage of the World Cup final was to screen a 50 minute edition of Coronation Street directly beforehand.

The first part of the schedule went according to plan with 13.28 million people tuning in to see Alec Gilroy and Sally Webster fluff their lines. When it came to watching the final people deserted the channel quicker than the Marie Seleste, with only 6.62 million staying for the match (compared to 15.65 million on BBC1). In keeping with giving soap operas a World Cup edition, BBC1 decided to screen three 15 minute specials of Eastenders leading up the final; the Friday edition attracted 9.82 million people.

For some unknown reason the BBC also decided that viewers desperately needed to see non-entity Jane McDonald get married in a special edition of The Cruise. Frighteningly, 8.8 million people wanted to see her tie the knot (even more frightening is she’s currently at No1 in the album charts replacing the Beastie Boys.)

Just what the world needs is another ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentary, this time in the shape of Lakesiders which takes a look at the various people who work in or use the shopping complex. 9.41 million tuned into the first edition of this ‘riveting’ new series to see such things as a store detective crouching behind a coat to catch a ‘tea leaf’ and a woman shopper returning a Christmas present only to find that it was eight years old (who said there are no quality factual programmes on television these days?)

Reviewer: Simon Wright

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