BBC One steals the show

BBC One stole the show last night, securing the highest ratings from 7.30pm onwards, with a straight peak run of Eastenders, Rogue Traders, Traffic Cops and The Hottest Place on the Earth, as well as BBC News at Ten and Question Time later on in the evening.

The channel’s flagship soap Eastenders kicked-off the peak run, and pulled in the highest ratings of the evening, with more than 8.7 million viewers and a 39.4% average audience share.

The second episode in the two-part series of The Hottest Place on Earth, which saw a team of experts and explorers visit the Danakil Desert in northern Ethiopia, banked the peak-hour audience with more than 4 million viewers and a 18.2% share.

However, Five’s new pilot, The Mentalist, an American drama starring Simon Baker, performed particularly well for the channel during the all-important peak slot – attracting more than 3.8 million peak viewers and a 16.3% share between 9pm and 10pm.

At the same time, ITV1’s new three-part series with Louise Redknapp, The Truth About Super Skinny Pregnancies, picked up 2.5 million viewers and an 11.3% average audience share, while Channel 4’s Trophy Kids and BBC Two’s Oil Spill both pulled in 1.3 million viewers each.

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.