TV Viewing Summary W/E 19/10/97

Bit of a turn up for the books this week as Thursday’s hour long episode of Emmerdale attracted an audience of 12.53 million, pushing Eastenders down to one of its worst positions in the chart for quite some time. That particular episode was only watched by 9.21 million, pulling the soap’s average score over three episodes down to 12.86 million. Emmerdale pushes its average figure up to 12.18 million over the three episodes, proving once again that the hour long one off is certainly an audience puller, and can still be used effectively against other direct competitors.

In fact Emmerdale is really the only soap to take advantage of this tactic, Eastenders occasionally will try a ‘special’, which usually proves to be more dismal than the usual tales from Albert Square, as we are trapped with one or two members of the cast for what seems an eternity – remember the Sharon and Chelle ding dong a few Christmases ago? Coronation Street still hangs on to the top slot in what is becoming an increasingly long and bitter purge of its older members. An average audience of 16.34 million keeps the soap at the top of the charts, whilst dipping into more outlandish story lines and plot changes (see the role of new Nicky Platt for details).

Into The Blue, a one off drama starring John Thaw attracted an audience of 10.94 million making it the third most popular drama of the week beyond the well established first and second placed Heartbeat (16.93 million) and Casualty (12.44 million). Another new drama for ITV in the same week came in the form of Lynda La Plante’s new two part Trial & Retribution – more harrowing drama proving as popular as ever (10.37 million).

Channel 4 looks the same as ever, with no real significant changes in its chart, Friends still at the top with 6.04 million viewers. Channel 5 however looks to be definitely picking up, probably helped along by some slightly higher quality programming. This week its top two were yet again films, namely Medicine Man (1.66 million) and Gridlock (1.59 million), in fact all of Channel 5’s top six shows achieved audiences above the million mark, and believe it or not this is becoming a regular occurrence. Not bad for a Channel that has Xena as its main figurehead, or is that perhaps the centre of its pulling power?

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