TV viewing round-up: April 2015
Despite the impression sometimes given that the general public is disengaged from politics, the election debates seemed to suggest there are decent audiences out there for it.
The most popular of these was ITV’s General Election Leaders’ Debate, though it’s entirely possible those watching just wanted to see various party leaders promise them the Earth in return for their votes.
Bringing to mind the ‘seven dwarves’ episode from season six of The West Wing, the first leaders’ debate chaired by Julie Etchingham grabbed an average audience of 7.1 million viewers.
ITV also scored another ratings success this month with the four-part drama series Safe House, which starred Chris Eccleston.
The story of a retired police detective who turns his home into the aforementioned safe house, pulled in a little under 7 million viewers for its opening episode.
Just finding its way into this month’s chart was Ninja Warrior, ITV’s version of popular Japanese assault course game show Sasuke, hosted by the trio of Ben Shepherd, Chris Kamara and Rochelle Humes.
Filling the Saturday night void ever since Gladiators went off-air, the show grabbed its highest ratings on 25 April with 4.7 million people tuning in to watch the fun.
Returning to sitcom for the first time since Max & Paddy’s Road To Nowhere, this month saw Peter Kay’s Car Share join the long list of BBC comedy shows.
The two-hander show focusing on a pair of co-workers’ daily trip to and from their office launched with 6.9 million.
This made it BBC One’s fourth-biggest comedy début of the decade after Come Fly With Me, Still Open All Hours and The Royal Bodyguard.
Grabbing the biggest ratings of the month was the return of Britain’s Got Talent, which was more good news for ITV.
Once again featuring the usual array of singers, dog acts and other assorted variety performers, the third episode of the ninth series attracted an average audience of 11.3 million.
Other programmes which did well in April include: Poldark (7.4 million); Ordinary Lies (5.9 million); MasterChef (7 million); Code of a Killer (6.2 million); DCI Banks (5 million) and Vera (6.1 million).
Top Programmes (excluding soaps):
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Sky vs Freeview (share):
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