The Apprentice makes a fiery comeback with over 6.6m viewers

The Apprentice made a banging comeback to BBC One last night, pulling in more than 6.6 million peak viewers during the all-important 9pm to 10pm slot.

The return of the reality series, which saw Lord Sugar challenge another bunch of entrepreneurial wannabes with their first task – creating their own range of sausages – easily secured the highest prime time ratings with 6.5 million average viewers and a 25.8% audience share.

BBC One stole ITV1’s thunder from 9pm onwards. Before that, however, ITV1 dominated the early evening ratings with a hour-long Emmerdale special, which peaked with more than eight million viewers and a 35.2% average share between 7pm and 8pm.

At 8pm, the channel’s popular Midsomer Murders continued with more than 5.9 million peak viewers, although the last hour (9pm to 10pm) saw viewers switch over to The Apprentice. Overall, the drama picked up 5.5 million average viewers and a 22.5% audience share.

Elsewhere, Channel 4’s peak-hour programme Grand Designs put in a good performance – attracting more than 2.4 million average viewers and a 9.5% share between 9pm and 10pm.

However, BBC Two’s Secret Iraq documentary and Channel 5’s NCIS were less successful in the peak slot, pulling in less than a million viewers each.

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.