Alan Sugar’s new Apprentice banks the top spot
The return of BBC One’s intense 12-week job interview with one of the most well-known business tycoons, Alan Sugar, kicked-off with an impressive 8.3 million viewers during the prime-time slot last night, its highest ever launch audience.
BBC’s all-new Apprentice saw a bunch of fresh-faced wannabes line-up for Sugar’s first task – involving a girls team, a boys team and lots of cleaning – and it didn’t disappoint – Sugar was on critical form as usual, while the apprentices ran around trying to please him in order to battle it out for the ultimate job.
Around 8.1 million average viewers tuned in to see the first episode of series five, securing BBC One with a high 33.3% average audience share during the all-important 9pm to 10pm peak hour – more than double the ratings of its nearest rival.
ITV1’s Taggart came a poor second, with only 3.2 million average viewers and a 13.3% share – failing to get anywhere close to BBC One’s figures, however, it did manage to hold the peak audience earlier on in the evening.
ITV1’s peak run started with Emmerdale at 7pm, which pulled in more than 7 million viewers, followed by Coronation Street with 8.9 million and finished off with The Bill, with more than 5 million average viewers.
BBC One and Channel 4 also attracted fairly impressive viewing figures during the early evening slots, with BBC One’s drama Waterloo Road pulling in almost 5 million peak viewers and Channel 4’s popular Relocation Relocation picking up 2.8 million.
However, Channel 4’s ratings slipped down to 2.5 million average viewers and a 10.6% share for Grand Designs, between the 9pm to 10pm peak-hour.
At the same time, BBC Two and Five’s ratings were also relatively low – with BBC Two’s new Alan Whicker’s Journey of a Lifetime attracting 1.9 million average viewers and Five’s Extraordinary People documentary series picking up just over 1 million.
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.