TV Overnights: BBC One’s Luther holds the Tuesday evening top spot

BBC One secured a prime time run from 7.30pm onwards last night with Eastenders, Holby City and Luther.

Eastenders pulled in a high of more than 8.5 million viewers and a 41.3% average audience share between 7.30pm and 8pm, before 5.8 million peak viewers tuned in to see the latest goings-on at Holby City hospital.

The third episode of BBC One’s new edgy crime drama Luther, meanwhile, attracted over 4.2 million peak viewers and a 17.9% average audience share during the all-important 9pm to 10pm peak-hour.

ITV1 was BBC One’s closest contender during the same prime time slot.  However, the only ITV1 programme to steal the peak audience share from BBC One between 5.30pm until gone midnight was Emmerdale, which banked 6 million viewers and a 33.3% average share between 7pm and 7.30pm.

Later on in the evening, ITV1’s long-running quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? picked up 3.1 million average viewers and a 14.9% share between 8pm and 9pm, while The Bill pulled in 2.6 million average viewers and a 11.8% share between 9pm and 10pm.

Elsewhere, Channel Five did well in the peak-hour with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, picking up more than 2 million viewers and a 8.9% average audience share.  At the same time Channel 4’s Heston’s Feast pipped BBC Two’s The Story of Science to fourth place in the 9pm to 10pm ratings war.

The last in the series of Heston’s Feast pulled in 1.8 million average viewers and a 8.3% share, while The Story of Science – Power, Proof and Passion settled on 1.7 million viewers and a 7.6% 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.