Death in Paradise ratings heaven for Kris Marshall's BBC1 cop drama

Jeremy Kyle makes primetime switch with more than 3m viewers while Shondha Rhimes’s Scandal watched by just over 100,000 on Sky

BBC1’s Caribbean crime drama Death in Paradise had nearly 7 million viewers for the return of its fourth series, its second with Kris Marshall in the lead role.

The drama, co-starring Sara Martins and Danny John-Jules, had 6.9 million viewers, a 29.7% share of the audience from 9pm on Thursday.

It was the same as the launch episode for the second series two years ago but marginally down on the overnight audience of 7.1 million for its third series opener last year, when Marshall took over from Ben Miller.

Death in Paradise was up against ITV’s Bring Back Borstal, in which 13 volunteers became borstal boys, which began a four-part run with 2.6 million viewers (11%), also from 9pm.

Scandal! It’s criminal

Shonda Rhimes US political drama Scandal returned to Sky Living for the first of its fourth series at 10pm with 108,000 viewers, a 0.6% share.

Small by mainstream channel standards, it was up 71% on the channel’s three-month slot average.

Elsewhere at 10pm, BBC3’s new prison (rather than borstal) based comedy Crims began with 425,000 viewers, a 2.3% share of the audience from 10pm.

Prime time Kyle

ITV’s daytime TV bust-up king Jeremy Kyle moved to primetime with The Kyle Files, which investigated shops that sell “legal highs”, and had 3.1 million viewers, a 14.3% share from 7.30pm.

It had the misfortune of going up against BBC1’s EastEnders, watched by just over 7 million (32.9%) at 7.30pm with another 6.6 million (28.6%) from 8.30pm.

Still buying. But are you selling?

Location, Location, Location returned for its 25th series on Channel 4. The house price boom was not echoed by its ratings, with just under 2 million viewers, an 8.7% share from 8pm.

All ratings are Barb overnight figures, including live, +1 (except for BBC channels) and same day timeshifted (recorded) viewing, but excluding on demand, or other – unless otherwise stated. Figures for BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 generally include ratings for their HD simulcast services, unless otherwise stated

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Contributor

John Plunkett

The GuardianTramp

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