Last of the Summer Wine beats Heartbeat

The final episode of Last of the Summer Wine topped 5 million last night and managed to beat Heartbeat which was on ITV1 at the same time.

The final ever episode of BBC One sitcom series Last of the Summer Wine topped 5 million viewers last night. The BBC announced the cancellation of the longest running comedy in the world earlier this year – it’s been on-air since the 1970s. The final episode was its 295th all of which have been written by the series creator Roy Clarke who also created Open All Hours and Keeping Up Appearances for the BBC.

Last of the Summer Wine has been a regular fixture on the BBC’s schedules for over 30 years and the deaths of cast members Thora Herd, Kathy Staff and Bill Owen didn’t stop the series from continuing. According to overnight figures Last of the Summer Wine was seen by 5.5 million viewers. The figure puts it comfortably ahead of fellow Yorkshire based series Heartbeat which is also due to end in just a few weeks. Heartbeat on ITV1 at 8pm was seen by 4.9 million viewers while Martin Clune’s Horsepower had 4 million at 9pm.

Secret Britain on BBC One at 9pm had 5 million viewers while Antiques Roadshow had 4 million viewers earlier in the evening. Comedy drama Vexed on BBC Two had 1.6 million viewers at 9pm which was up on its previous week while Match of the Day 2 gave BBC Two its highest figure of the day with 3 million viewers.

Ultimate Big Brother tumbled down in the ratings for Channel Four at 8pm with just 1.8 million viewers while Inside Incredible Athletes had just 760,000 viewers and Alan Carr’s Chatty Man also performed badly with 830,000 viewers.