Coronation Street live attracts 14 million

According to overnight figures, 14 million viewers tuned in to watch last night's live episode of Coronation Street. The episode averaged 14.027 million viewers totalling a 51.2 per cent share of the audience between 8pm and 9pm of whom 631,000 were watching on ITV1 HD. The figures peaked with 14.230 million for its final 15 minutes and had a five-minute peak of 14.9 million, according to ITV. The special live episode featured 65 actors and a 300-strong crew to portray the devastating aftermath of the tram crash as part of the show's 50th anniversary. It was the most-watched episode of Coronation Street for seven years, and up on the 12.902 million viewers who watched the initial tram crash episode on Monday. The hour-long special which saw Ashley Peacock and Molly Dobbs perish has been hailed a great success by critics, despite a few hiccups along the way.

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.