Lucas wins the ratings, for today ...
What’s more exciting, a mentally ill murdering preacher man who’s locked his wife in the basement or an ex-con banned from teaching living a double life so he can stay in the classroom, all the time being blackmailed and threatened?
Well they’re both compelling story-lines – but it appears the viewers are marginally favouring religious flavoured insanity at the moment if last night’s overnight ratings figures are anything to go by.
Eastenders drew a 9.05 million viewers (38.9% share) last night between 8pm and 8.30pm on BBC One when it was revealed Lucas Johnson the mad pastor had imprisoned his wife Denise in a basement after convincing the world she had committed murder, whereas in reality, it had been him. Sounds unbelievable, eh? Well you want to see the rest of this weeks Eastenders if you think that is crazy … you’ll never guess where the basement is … actually you might, I did.
Meanwhile the John Stape / Colin Fishwick identity theft storyline is hotting up in Coronation Street, but ITV1 was only able to attract 8.35 million viewers (37.9% share) for the first instalment of the soap (7.30pm – 8pm) and 8.57 million pairs of eyes (36.5% share) for the 8.30pm – 9pm episode.
With both high profile story-lines heading for dramatic conclusions this week, it’s going to be an interesting few days for soap ratings as the two big boys battle it out for supremacy on ‘opera-alley’.
My prediction is that Eastenders will stay top rated until Thursday when the majority of the Lucas situation is resolved, but Corrie will surge ahead on Friday as things really hot up on the street.
