TV Overnights: The Silence secures 4.7m for BBC One

BBC One’s new four-part thriller The Silence started on a high of 4.7 million viewers last night.

The hour-long drama, starring Genevieve Barr, secured almost a million more viewers than its main rival – ITV1’s crime drama Identity – during the all-important 9pm to 10pm peak slot.

The Silence attracted 4.7 million average viewers and a 20% audience share, compared to Identity‘s 3.8 million average viewers and 16.2% share.

Elsewhere, BBC Two’s final Mary, Queen of Shops banked 2.6 million average viewers and a 11.1% share, while Channel 4’s new Concorde’s Last Flight – a documentary about the Air France Flight 4590 disaster in Paris ten years ago – pulled in 2 million viewers and a 9% share.

Meanwhile, Five’s 9 o’clock film xXx, the action thriller starring Vin Diesel, settled on over a million viewers and a 5.3% average share between 9pm and 11.20pm.

Earlier on in the evening, the soaps dominated the pre-watershed line-up.  ITV1’s double-Coronation Street and Emmerdale episodes took up most of the early-evening schedule, although BBC One’s Eastenders secured the highest ratings with more than 9 million viewers.

Coronation Street peaked with 8.5 million viewers at 8.30pm, while Emmerdale banked 6.4 million peak viewers at 7.15pm.

The day-time ratings were mostly balanced between BBC One and ITV1, with BBC One proving to be popular during the morning slots and ITV1 stepping in during the afternoon slots.  However, Channel 4 claimed the top spot on two occasions yesterday, with Deal or No Deal at 4.10pm and again with a late-night Big Brother at 11pm.

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.