Line of Duty in viewers’ sights as finale becomes year’s most watched show
Line Of Duty’s hotly-anticipated finale scooped more than nine million viewers, making it the biggest show of the year so far.
The tense final episode of the hit BBC One series that aired on Sunday night attracted an average audience of 9.1 mil - lion – a 44.1 per cent share. The episode peaked at 9.6 million viewers.
It makes the drama, on the activities of police anti-corruption unit AC-12, the most popular programme of 2019 so far.
The figures are also the highest for a drama since Bodyguard, which was also created by Jed Mercurio.
The finale to that hit thriller, starring Keeley Hawes and Richard Madden, drew a higher overnight audience of 10.4 million and a peak of 11 million last year.
The BBC said that Sunday night’s Line Of Duty, starring Vicky Mcclure, Martin Comps ton, Adrian Dun bar and Anna Maxwell Martin, was “the biggest overnight rating for the series ever”.
It was also “the most watched show of the night across all channels, as well the biggest overnight rating of the year so far”.
Figures are expected to grow once consolidated numbers – programmes recorded and watched up to seven days later – are taken into account.
The show originally started on BBC Two and a sixth series has been ordered by the BBC.
BBC director of content Charlotte Moore said :“Over the past six weeks, Line Of Duty has kept the whole nation on the edge of their seats, so it was fantastic to see such a big audience for Sunday’s finale.”
Line Of Duty actress Polly Walker has meanwhile admitted she did not watch the hit series – despite her alter-ego Gill Biggeloe being unmasked as the “snake in the grass”.
Walker, who was kept in the dark about the full extent of her corrupt character’ s involvement until near the end, revealed she steered clear of the series.
“I’ve always known that Gill was a ‘ bad ’ un’ on some level, but I didn’t know to what extent.” Asked whether she tuned into the finale, she said: “No I didn’t. I went to a friend’s birthday party.”