TV Overnights: Rock & Chips wins peak-time top spot with 7.5m viewers
BBC One’s new one-off comedy Rock & Chips stole the show during last night’s peak-slot with a high of more than 7.5 million viewers.
The Only Fools and Horses prequel, set in Peckham in 1960 and starring Nicholas Lyndhurst as Freddie ‘The Frog’ rather than Rodney Trotter, attracted over 7.4 million viewers and a 27.8% average audience share between 9pm and 10.30pm.
The hour and a half-long special took the peak audience away from ITV1’s Sunday line-up, which featured two Live FA Cup games, Dancing on Ice and Wild at Heart.
ITV1’s football coverage easily secured the peak share during the afternoon slot, as did the main Dancing on Ice show at 6.25pm. Almost 9 million peak viewers tuned in to see the 12 remaining celebrities compete together for the first time following a week’s training with Torvill and Dean.
However, Wild at Heart‘s 6.4 million average viewers and 22.7% audience share wasn’t enough to hold on to the peak share during the all-important 9pm to 10pm slot. BBC One’s Rock & Chips also took the peak share away from the Dancing on Ice Skate Off show, which pulled in 6.4 million average viewers and a 24.4% audience share.
On Saturday, BBC One secured a peak run with two episodes of So You Think You Can Dance, The National Lottery, Casualty and Live at the Apollo.
The first So You Think You Can Dance show – the third of the live finals with judges Nigel Lythgoe, Arlene Phillips and Louise Redknapp – picked up a high of more than 6 million viewers, while the second pulled in 5.4 million peak viewers.
The National Lottery, placed between the two dance programmes, settled on 6.3 million viewers, while Casualty attracted 5.8 million viewers and Live at the Apollo pulled in 3.5 million.
BBC One also dominated the ratings on Friday evening. Eastenders failed to win the top soap spot after being pipped by ITV1’s Coronation Street, which attracted an impressive high of more than 10 million viewers.
However, the channel took the lead from 9pm onwards with Silent Witness, BBC News and Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. The sixth episode of the new ten-part Silent Witness series sat well ahead of its rival terrestrial channels during the 9pm to 10pm peak-hour with 6 million viewers and a 23.6% average 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.