Katie Hopkins' TLC show fails to rule the world

The Mentorn Media-produced format, fronted by the controversial Sun columnist, struggled to deliver big ratings despite a blaze of marketing and publicity.

It just about beat the channel’s 50,000 (0.3%) slot average, but was nearly 200,000 viewers short of the 257,000 (1.1%) that tuned in for Katie Hopkins: My Fat Story in January 2015 – although this aired at the slightly earlier time of 9pm.

If Katie Hopkins Ruled the World did beat TLC’s female-skewing pay-TV rivals. Sky Living aired drama Unforgettable between 10pm and 11pm to 21,000 (0.1%) viewers, while Lifetime film The Last Trimester was watched by 18,000 (0.1%) from 9pm to 10.45pm.

Some 61.8% of the audience for If Katie Hopkins Ruled the World was female, according to Barb data supplied by overnights.tv.

Lion Television’s Julia Bradbury-fronted factual series, which was shelved after two episodes in January, returned for its third episode seven months later with no uplift in performance.

Its audience was in line with the 1.8m (7.7%) overnight average that the first two episodes garnered, although they were broadcast on Tuesday evening at 9pm.

The show fell well short of ITV’s 3.2m (15%) slot average, but held off competition in the slot from both Channel 4 and Channel 5.

The former aired Ricochet’s one-off documentary, Sex in Class, which followed Belgian sexologist Goedele Liekens as she tried to revamp sex education in a Lancashire school.

It registered 1.4m (7.3%) over 9pm the hour, falling short of C4’s 1.6m (7.7%) slot average. The programme still beat C5’s six-part series Supersized, which came to its halfway point with a high of 1.1m (4.2%).

All three shows lost out to the 9pm offerings on BBC1 and BBC2, with the latter’s Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean educating 2.1m (11.2%), 100,000 down on last week’s audience.

BBC1 won the slot with a repeat of Red Planet Pictures drama Death in Paradise, which gripped 2.9m (15.6%).

Highlights from a dramatic first day of the fourth Ashes test at Trent Bridge, in which England bowled Australia out for 60 during the morning session, delivered for C5.

It was easily the highest-rated highlights of the series to date and smashed the channel’s slot average of 497,000 (2.6%) for the past 12 months.

The full days play secured an audience of 489,000 (6.2%) for Sky Sports 2 between 10am and 7pm, peaking with 903,000 (6.3%) in the five minutes from 6.25pm.