Comic Relief wins over viewers

BBC One’s Comic Relief special shows attracted the highest ratings last night and helped the channel secure the peak audience from 7.30pm onwards, ahead of its terrestrial rivals.

Eastenders started off BBC One’s peak run – with more than 8.6 million average viewers and a 39% audience share between 7.30pm and 8pm.

Comic Relief’s one-off documentary, Kilimanjaro -The Big Red Nose Climb, followed with over 9 million peak viewers and a 36.6% share – the programme followed Gary Barlow’s celebrity team, which included Cheryl Cole, Chris Moyles and Denise Van Outen to name a few, on their charity trek in Tanzania.

Meanwhile, Alan Sugar’s special Comic Relief Does The Apprentice 2009 secured BBC One with the peak audience during the all-important 9pm to 10pm slot, with more than 8.1 million peak viewers and a 33% share.

Two celebrity teams, including Jonathan Ross, Alan Carr, Jack Dee, Gok Wan, Ruby Wax, Patsy Palmer, Carol Vorderman and Fiona Phillips, took part in designing toys for the charity edition of the well-known business show.

BBC One managed to hold on to the peak audience past 10pm as well with its long-running BBC News slot and popular political programme, Question Time.

Elsewhere, ITV1’s last in the series of Billy Connolly’s Journey to the Edge of the World pulled in 3.6 million average viewers and a 15.2% share during the peak 9pm to 10pm slot.

At the same time, Channel 4’s second episode of the three-part Jack the Ripper programme Red Riding picked up 1.5 million viewers, while BBC Two’s Darwin’s Dangerous Idea attracted 1.4 million.

Five’s 8pm film – The Postman – starring Kevin Costner pulled in just 576,000 viewers and a 2.7% average audience share.

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.