Line of Duty in viewers’ sights as BBC drama now the year’s most watched
Line Of Duty has become the biggest TV show of 2019 with more than seven million people tuning in to watch the BBC police drama.
The Jed Mercurio procedural returned on Sunday night and recorded the highest ratings for an episode in the show’s history and the largest on any channel this year.
Overnight figures show an average of 7.8 million viewers watched the drama unfold on BBC One, with a peak of eight million for the first instalment of series five.
The episode welcomed new cast members Stephen Graham and Rochenda Sandall.
The show has enjoyed a boost of 2.8 million overnight viewership from the launch of the last series when 5.4 million watched the work of AC-12.
Only the FA cup coverage from 25 January this year was more popular with younger viewers than the latest episode of Line Of Duty, which enjoyed a 38 per cent overall audience share.
The figures follow the ratings success of fellow Mercurio drama Bodyguard. The final episode of the gripping BBC thriller had a huge television audience of 14.3 million.
Sunday’s episode centred on an investigation into an ambush of a truck carrying heroin by a gang wearing balaclavas. Scottish actor Martin Compston, who plays DS Steve Arnott, Vicky Mcclure as DS Kate Fleming and Adrian Dunbar in the role of Superintendent Ted Hastings also returned to dramatic duty in the BBC One series.
Graham plays criminal John Corbett and Sandall takes the role of Lisa Mcqueen.
Keeley Hawes has meanwhile said there is no escape from hit series Bodyguard even when filming overseas.
The actress played fictional home secretary Julia Montague opposite Richard Madden as PS David Budd in the BBC thriller. She said she relished being away from the attention around the programme, which aired while she was in Corfu filming TV drama The Durrells.
The 43-year-old said “It seems there’s no escape from Bodyguard. Even here in my Corfu bubble, people come up and ask me about it.”