The ITV drama Mr Bates vs. the Submit Workplace has turn into the British broadcaster’s greatest new drama in over a decade, beating even the launch of Downton Abbey again in 2010.
The four-part drama sequence was aired initially within the first week of 2024, and has now reported greater than 16.6million streams on the ITVX streaming platform.
The drama tells the true story of how a whole lot of the UK’s Submit Workplace native department managers had been fobbed off by the Submit Workplace nationwide government once they reported errors with their accounting, and had been held accountable for the deficits within the figures that ensued. The reality was that defective software program was liable for the numerous errors, however not earlier than many harmless folks had been sacked, made bankrupt and homeless, and convicted of false accounting. The ‘Mr Bates’ of the title was the lead campaigner who battled for 20 years to safe justice for the numerous victims.
The success of the drama and the uproar that adopted has led the UK authorities to vow swift laws guaranteeing these convictions are overturned and compensation paid out to the victims of what has been tagged the largest miscarriage of justice in British authorized historical past.
The viewers figures for the ITV present make it the largest drama within the UK for the reason that BBC’s Line of Obligation sixth season aired in 2021, and the largest new drama for the reason that BBC’s Bodyguard in 2018. And it’s ITV’s greatest drama since Broadchurch in 2017.
The 4 episodes are probably the most watched programmes on any channel to this point this 12 months.
Mr Bates vs. the Submit Workplace is distributed internationally by ITV Studios.