EastEnders is car crash TV
By SARA NATHAN
TV Editor
May 19, 2007
EASTENDERS slumped to its lowest ever audience share as viewers dodged the car crash involving Phil Mitchell and Ian Beale. BBC1 spent a fortune setting up the story for Phil, played by Steve McFadden, and Ian (Adam Woodyatt), which led to last night’s dramatic water rescue. But Thursday night viewers preferred ITV1’s Emmerdale one-hour special, revealing who killed Tom King. Its audience peaked at 9.1million for the confession of Tom’s son Carl, played by Tom Lister.
That was a 44 per cent share of those watching telly — while EastEnders had only four million viewers, or a 19.6 per cent share. The ratings for EastEnders were its second lowest ever. They just scraped past the 3.9 million who tuned in last July when both soaps also went head-to-head. Dale star Tom told The Sun: “We’re all really proud. It was torture not being able to tell anyone the storyline — I didn’t even tell my mum and she was really upset!” The BBC said: “There’s another chance to see EastEnders at 10pm on BBC Three, and last night it attracted a record 1.4million.”
-----------------
So these numbers are for Thursday night's edition - but I must admit I quite enjoyed skimming through Friday's edition for the crash-scenes. The only other story line that has the slightest interest for me is between Max and Stacey, while the pish that is a bunch of women sitting in a beauty shop is just a shambles for a show that's supposed to be for a wide audience. No wonder they had such bad ratings.
I read that the scene was filmed in the same set that's used for James Bond and thre was more than a hint of Bondery in the camerawork as Phil dived down to rescue and I actually enjoyed the whole scene. Phil's look of trust/annoyance as he sent Billy off to get help was subtle and worthy, for instance.
