TV Overnights: Waking the Dead secures the top spot with 6.3m viewers

BBC One’s Waking the Dead series secured the highest ratings during the all-important prime-time slot last night with 6.3 million peak viewers.

The conclusion of the two-part opening episode, starring Trevor Eve, attracted 6.1 million average viewers and a 25.8% audience share between 9pm and 10pm, over a million more than its ITV1 rival drama.

Blue Murder returned to ITV1 with 5.4 million peak viewers but slipped down to 4.6 million in the final fifteen minutes.  The hour-long police drama with Caroline Quentin pulled in 5 million average viewers and a 21.1% share during the peak-time slot.

Elsewhere, Channel 4’s new feature-length documentary 9/11: 102 Minutes That Changed America, which joined together pieces of footage and audiotape recorded by people in New York to give an insight into their experiences of 9/11, picked up more than 2.7 million viewers and a 13.6% average share.

At the same time, BBC Two’s one-off documentary following the progress of the wannabe chefs who won a chance to open a restaurant with Raymond Blanc – The Restaurant: The Winner’s Story – pulled in 1.5 million average viewers and a 6.5% share, while Five’s Warship attracted 941,000 viewers and a 3.9% share.

Earlier on in the evening, ITV1’s Coronation Street secured a high 9.1 million viewers despite Daniella Westbrook’s (aka Sam Mitchell) much-publicised return to Albert Square, which picked up 8.8 million peak viewers for BBC One’s Eastenders.

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.