Sunday 26th August saw Inspector George Gently back on our screens for his fifth series on BBC One, arresting 6.1m (27.5%) viewers in the process. This comfortably beat the second, and penultimate, part of ITV1’s The Last Weekend which only managed a disappointing 2.2m (9.7%).
Any other week this would have been enough to top the ratings table but Bank Holiday Monday saw New Tricks return with 7.8m (31.6%) viewers, proving the old adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
On Thursday 30th the BBC made it a hat-trick of crime drama successes by launching new show Good Cop, starring Luther’s Warren Brown. The show easily won its time slot with 4.1m (17.8%) viewers with only a repeat of Doc Martin on ITV1 as competition.
A cop show of a different kind premiered on Sky1 on Sunday as Charlie Brooker’s Airplane!-style spoof A Touch of Cloth managed to keep 517k (2.3%) viewers entertained. This figure did fall to 384k (1.6%) on Monday, however, for the show’s concluding part.
Comedy cop show Vexed had a better week than last rising to 915k (3.5%) viewers for its fifth episode on BBC Two on Wednesday 29th, but we’d be surprised if it returns for a third series.
Away from the police procedurals, new BBC One sitcom Citizen Khan debuted with 3.6m (21.5%) but it will be interesting to see if this figure falls next week following 700 complaints after the opening episode.
Bad Education continues to perform well for BBC Three with 927k (4.7%) viewers and Julia Davis’ new comedy Hunderby received 110k viewers for Sky Atlantic on Monday 27th, a figure more than double the average audience Sky Atlantic has seen in the same time slot for at least 3 months.
Once Upon a Time finished very strongly on Sunday with 1.2m (5.7%) seeing the season finale on Channel 5, whilst the surprise of the week saw Jimmy McGovern’s acclaimed Accused shed more viewers, pulling in a still impressive 4.1m (18%) people on Tuesday 28th.
> Buy Good Cop on DVD on Amazon.
Watch the trailer for Good Cop…
All data was supplied by Attentional, Digital Spy and The Guardian.
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