EastEnders records lowest ever audience share
EastEnders slumped to its lowest ever audience share last night as viewers flocked to rival soap Emmerdale.
Emmerdale’s one-hour special on ITV1 finally revealed who had killed Tom King.
An average audience of 8.6 million watched the show, peaking at 9.1 million for the moment Tom’s son Carl confessed to the murder.
That represented a 44% share of the available viewing audience.
On BBC1, EastEnders had just four million viewers.
Its 19.6% share was the lowest for the soap since records began.
The ratings were also the second lowest in the show’s history – beaten only by a 3.9 million audience in July last year, when EastEnders also went head-to-head with Emmerdale.
Emmerdale was broadcast from 7pm-8pm, while EastEnders went out from 7.30pm-8pm.
An EastEnders spokeswoman said the ratings were low only because the soaps were scheduled against one another.
“It is viewers who miss out when the soap audience is split by ITV scheduling Emmerdale directly against EastEnders,” she said.
Last Friday’s episode was watched by an average audience of nine million, peaking at 9.8 million, she added.
Last night’s BBC3 catch-up show, allowing viewers to see the episode at 10pm, attracted a record 1.4 million viewers.
