TV Viewing Summary – W/E 18/05/97

The soaps cleaned out the top spots again this week. Coronation Street was again top of the league with 15.79 million viewers. Although Eastenders achieved a higher weekly average than The Street, amassing an average of 14.45 million viewers over three nights, in comparison, Coronation Street recorded an average of 13.33 million viewers over four episodes. The Square has returned to its old tried and tested script-writing recipe, mixing tragedy and comedy with a sprinkling of reality and it is obviously proving popular with the audience.

Once again, we can take pride in the quality and durability of British comedy as the many times repeated Only Fools and Horses comes in at number nine, with 11.18 million. While, the high spot of the soccer season, the FA Cup Final, attracted 11.10 million armchair fans. ITV will be hoping to match this performance when they take over this broadcast from the BBC next year.

The Network was pleased with the ratings for the first episode of Wokenwell, the surreal drama took 10.60 million viewers to fall into the number 11 spot. However, Anglia TV’s Touching Evil saw another significant drop in its third week, falling from 10.63 to 9.75 million week-on-week. Meanwhile, Central TV’s Sharpe is also struggling, clinging on at the bottom of the top 30 with 7.57 million; ITV chiefs will be disappointed that a show that previewed the week before with 9.61 million has fallen back so rapidly. The BBC, however, is celebrating a similar situation in reverse, Jonathan Creek is gaining in popularity as the episodes roll-out, 9.35 viewers, tuned into see the second episode, this compares with 9.31 for the first episode.