Cheryl Cole's Night In

Anna Pickard of The Guardian described the programme as "an hour of commissioning genius", despite Stuart Heritage of the same publication arguing that "just the title is enough to put you off".^[4][5] In a separate article, Heritage voiced his belief that the programme saw Cole "discussing her life in the blandest possible terms while wearing a variety of impractical dresses".^[6] Rick Fulton of the Daily Record was complimentary of the programme as he compared the dance routine that accompanied "Parachute" to a routine from the programme Strictly Come Dancing.^[7] Alexandra Burke, who featured in the programme, praised Cole by complimenting her hairstyle and by stating that her performance had "gone up another level".^[8] Sian Brewis of the Leicester Mercury was critical of the programme; she claimed that it was an "hour-long plug for Chezza's [Cole’s nickname] album", branded Willoughby's questions "vacuous" and compared Cole's costumes to that worn by characters of Street Fighter II.^[9] Rachel Holmes, writing in The Guardian, was also critical of Cole's choice of attire and argued that the programme was uninformative. Holmes also claimed that viewers "were suffering from Chezza overload" due to her appearances on The X Factor the same weekend.^[10]

The programme attracted 5 million viewers, a 22% share of the viewing audience, on its first airing. However, an episode of Merlin and an installment of the seventh series of Strictly Come Dancing, which aired at the same time on BBC One, attracted 5.2 million (25% of the audience) and 8.1 million (33%) respectively.^[11]