The Bill banks 5 million viewers

The Bill‘s special ‘Too Hot to Handle’ episode banked more than 5.3 million viewers at 9pm last night.

It held the peak audience for most of the all-important 9pm to 10pm slot with a 21% audience share, only missing out between 9.15pm and 9.30pm when the festive edition of BBC One’s quiz show QI pulled in 5.2 million viewers and a 21.5% share.

Meanwhile, the last in the series of Gavin & Stacey attracted almost 4 million peak viewers and a 16.6% audience share between 9.30pm and 10pm, before concluding at 10.35pm with 3.5 million peak viewers.

BBC Two’s film premiere of The Brothers Grimm, starring Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, failed to impress with under 2 million average viewers and a 8.5% audience share.

At the same time, Channel 4’s last in the series of the survival earth programme Catastrophe picked up 1.6 million average viewers and a 7% audience share.

However, the soap’s festive antics proved to be as popular as ever – BBC One’s Eastenders secured a 38.2% audience share with more than 9.5 million peak viewers, while ITV1’s Coronation Street attracted 9.3 million peak viewers.

Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks and key multi-channel stations.

ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk Channel Four: 020 7396 4444 www.channel4.com