TV Overnights: BBC One and ITV1 share the peak-hour top spot

BBC One and ITV1’s crime dramas split the peak-hour ratings in to two halves last night.

The third episode of ITV1’s popular Law & Order: UK series, starring Bradley Walsh, secured the highest ratings during the first half of the 9pm to 10pm peak-hour with more than 5.7 million peak viewers.

However, the channels ratings slipped down to an average of 4.7 million viewers from 9.30pm onwards, making way for BBC One’s Hustle to take the lead.

The fourth episode of Hustle, with Adrian Lester and Matt Di Angelo, started on a slightly lower 4.9 million viewers but increased its share to over 20% (and 5.1 million viewers)  in the final 30 minutes.

On average, ITV1’s Law & Order just pipped BBC One’s Hustle with 5.08 million viewers and a 19.7% average audience share to BBC One’s 5.05 million viewers and 19.5% share during the all-important hour-long slot.

Elsewhere, Channel 4’s Celebrity Big Brother coverage pulled in over 2.6 million average viewers and a 10.1% share to take third place in the peak-time ratings war.

BBC Two’s The British Family came next with 1.8 million average viewers and a 7% share, followed by Five’s Paul Merton in Europe, which attracted 1.3 million viewers and a 5.3% share.

Earlier on in the evening, the soaps battled it out for the highest pre-watershed ratings.  ITV1’s Coronation Street just claimed the top spot with a high of almost 11 million viewers and a 44.7% share, compared to BBC One’s Eastenders‘ 10.4 million viewers and 40.1% 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.