Record breakers ... but no Cheryl Baker
+++UPDATE – READ A FULL PREVIEW OF EPISODE 2 HERE +++
The new series of hit adolescent comedy The Inbetweeners powered back onto our screens last night with the biggest ever E4 audience watching the show
Airing at 10pm on Monday September 13th, the first show, entitled The Fashion Show attracted an impressive 2.6 million viewer average throughout its half hour run on E4, a 12.5 per cent share of all television viewers at that time – a result that even elder cousin Channel 4 would have been happy with.
The show was the second most viewed programme in its slot, beating off competition from ITV News (2.1m) and Grandma’s House (777k) on BBC Two, only to be surpassed in ratings terms by the Ten O’Clock News on BBC One.
E4′s previous ratings record was set by an episode of American sit-com Friends which drew 2.4m viewers in January 2003, and the highest rated original content was an episode of Hollyoaks which attracted 2m pairs of eyes in August 2008.
Bosses at the station will be more than pleased with this result, especially considering series two of The Inbetweeners only averaged 1.3m when it launched, falling to 1.2m across the series.
In addition, the programme hoovered up 33.9 per cent of their target 16-34 audience demographic across all channels, with that age group making up 64 per cent of all those watching the show.
Nerys Evans, Commissioning Editor Comedy said:
“We’re so delighted that Series 3 has kicked off with such a fantastic episode and in record breaking style too. It’s also great to know that the rest of the series is absolutely jam packed with comedy treats for The Inbetweeners fans to look forward to.”
