TV Viewing Summary W/E 16/11/97

This week’s main feast from the BBC was born in the form of five nightly episodes of Eastenders. The main theme was Ian Beale’s little jaunt to Italy in an attempt to right the wrongs done unto him by that ‘flaming jezebel’ of an ex-wife Cindy and ‘get the kids back’. The Mitchell brothers were brought along to make up the numbers (and make Anglo-Italtian relations a little more interesting), and as usual Grant didn’t disappoint. It’s nice to see the odd bit of humour appearing in Eastenders, the car crash incident whilst fleeing with “liberated” children enabled us to see Grant struggling to control his aggression, looking to his brother for the go ahead to lay into the locals – “Please, just let me give him a little slap!!”.

Still, this extended display of Eastend adventure failed to have the scale of impact the BBC were probably hoping for, with the five episodes attracting an average audience of 15.06 million. Coronation Street remains the hands down winner with an average of 17.05 million viewers.

The main event of the week for ITV though was to be the long awaited wedding episode of Heartbeat, attracting an audience of 18.35 million. Casualty and London’s Burning were watched by 11.39 and 12.38 million respectively, with Gold slipping to an audience of 9.95 million.

Sky continues to improve its audience figures with four individual programs attracting an audience of over a million, extending its dominance above other Satellite channels.

Subscribers can access Television Database by selecting “Television” from the drop-down box at the top of this page.