Overnights: BBC One wins the battle of the new dramas

Jimmy McGovern’s drama The Street returned to BBC One with an impressive 5.4 million peak viewers last night.

The first episode in the six-part drama, starring Bob Hoskins as pub landlord Paddy, attracted over 5 million average viewers and a 22.3% audience share when it came head-to-head with ITV1’s new drama during the all-important 9pm to 10pm peak-hour.

ITV1’s all-new seven-part Monday Monday debuted with a high of 4.3 million viewers in the first fifteen minutes but slipped down to an average of 3.6 million throughout the hour.

The series, which stars Fay Ripley, Morven Christie and Neil Stuke as a group of employees at a struggling supermarket chain that has recently relocated its head office to Leeds, secured a 16.2% average audience share during the prime-time slot.

At the same time, BBC Two’s penultimate The Supersizers Eat picked up more than 2 million viewers and a 9.2% share, while the two remaining terrestrial channels battled it out for fourth place in the peak-hour ratings war.

Channel 4’s Inside Nature’s Giants just pipped Five’s The Hotel Inspector with 1.5 million average viewers compared to Five’s 1.4 million.

Earlier on in the evening, ITV1’s Coronation Street took the lead over its BBC One rival Eastenders once again with an impressive high of 9.1 million viewers and a 43.3% 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.