Channel 5 arrests 1.5m with Police: Night Shift 999

The third outing of Crackit’s Police: Night Shift 999 smashed Channel 5’s slot average to lock up an almost 12% share for the channel in the programme’s highest rated episode for the broadcaster.  

The police series, which sat among a roster of blue light programming on Channel 5 on Monday evening easily surpassed the 940,000 (6.3%) slot average on Channel 5 and also exceeded the second series return of fellow blue-light format Police: Suspect No 1 which opened with 1.2m (8.7%) in February. 

Police: Night shift became the second-most watched programme at 9pm, beaten only by the debut episode of BBC1 family drama Best Interests which opened to 2m (15.9%).  

The four-part drama, starring Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen as parents of a disabled child was unable to beat last month’s factual drama Steeltown Murders, which opened with 3m (21.6%) in the same slot in May.  

It was also behind previous family drama starring Nicola Walker and Sean Bean, Marriage, which got underway with 3.3m in the Sunday slot in August last year according to Barb data from overnights.tv.  

Best Interests has not been boxsetted on iPlayer and will drop weekly for the next month.  

Meanwhile, Channel 4’s documentary Sarah Beeny vs Cancer from Outline drew 950,000 (7.5%) to the channel. The documentary, which follows Sarah Beeny’s breast cancer treatment drew more than double last week’s health documentary Davina McCall’s Pill Revolution which informed 390,000 (3.3%) in the Thursday slot.  

Also in factual, BBC2’s follow up from the Bafta-nominated Once Upon a Time in Iraq, Keo Films’ Once Upon A Time in Northern Ireland continued with 740,000 (5.8%) for its penultimate episode, which is also available as a boxset on iPlayer. The series had opened with 680,000 (4.9%), above the 480,000 (2.8%) that tuned into the Iraq series in July 2020.  

Rounding out the 9pm slot for the PSBs, a repeat of The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe entertained 710,000 (5.6%) on ITV1. It was beaten by its sister youth-skewing channel ITV2, where Love Island continued with a steady 980,000 (7.8%).