Doc Martin ratings near 9 million viewers
{jcomments off}ITV’s Doc Martin saw its ratings rise last night’s second episode while Big Brother continued to attract low ratings and Made in Chelsea returned with a somewhat subdued audience on E4 but time-shift figures boost its by a fair bit.
ITV Drama has a reason to celebrate once again; just a day after Downton Abbey’s triumphant return to 9 million viewers Doc Martin also pulled in big figures. The drama series starring Martin Clunes and Caroline Catz returned last Monday, for a fifth season, with 8.4 million viewers. The trend for any show tends to be high figures for the opening episode while subsequent episodes experience falls before stabilising – well Doc Martin saw its ratings rise last night. Overnight figures reveal that 8.8 million viewers watched on ITV1 at 9pm with the time-shift channel adding a further 270k meaning a combined audience of roughly 9 million viewers.
The drama easily beat BBC One’s offering of The Queen’s Palaces which explored Windsor Castle in the second edition fronted by Fiona Bruce; the factual series had 3.1 million viewers. Embarrassing Bodies had 1.8 million viewers for Channel Four at 9pm while Dragon’s Den entertained 2 million viewers on BBC Two. Channel Five’s Jack the Ripper: The Definitive Story had 825,000 viewers at 9pm. Big Brother continued its poor run for Channel Five at 10pm as the antics of the ‘normal housemates’ seem to be a turn off for viewers. While Celebrity Big Brother performed well for the broadcaster the ‘normal’ edition has met with lacklustre ratings. The latest episode had 1.4 million viewers for Channel Five at 10pm.
Elsewhere last night E4’s scripted reality series Made in Chelsea returned for a second series at 10pm. The series – in similar vain to Geordie Shore and The Only Way is Essex – had something of a subdued return with 378,000 viewers compared to an average of just under 500,000 viewers who watched the first series. However, figures for E4’s time-shift channel do significantly Made in Chelsea’s ratings perhaps demonstrating part of the audience where watching Big Brother first. And finally Sky Atlantic’s new comedy series This Is Jinsy debuted with just 50k viewers.