TV Weekly Viewing Summary W/E 25/05/97

Coronation Street comes out on top this week with an average audience of 13.65 million over its four episodes. The real story in the soap world is the rout of Eastenders on Thursday, which only drew an audience of 8.97 million. In its place Emmerdale reigned supreme that evening with another hour long special. The continued popularity of these double episodes remains clear, with 13.21 million viewers tuning in and giving Emmerdale an average of 12.34 million over the whole week. Eastenders‘ average figure suffered as a result and worked out as only 12.83 million viewers this week.

There was better news for the BBC south of the river with Peckham’s finest traders attracting 10.80 million viewers in the vintage comedy Only Fools And Horses. Taking us right back to the early eighties, the show has actually seen a drop of one million on the previous week’s total, but still comes in as the most popular comedy of the week. Whilst the ITV Network seems to lack any substantial comedy programmes, they are in no hurry to relinquish their firm grip over drama. The Grand may be slipping (7.95 million this week, 8.39 million the week before), but Sharpe has made a good recovery and ends its run with 9.07 million watching the Waterloo finale. All of these, and even those second (or is it third ?) time reruns of A Touch Of Frost (8.39 million), are still coming in above the BBC’s new offering Jonathan Creek (8.28 million).

Over on Channel Four E.R. is still the big attraction, with 4.12 million watching this week. The inclusion of Bleasdale’s Melissa (watched by 3.46 million and 3.36 million on Monday and Tuesday nights respectively) making the only real difference to the Channel’s usual top ten of Brookside and Countdown. Channel 5 achieved a film audience above the norm this week with National Lampoon – Loaded Weapon attracting 1.90 million.

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