TV Overnights: The Royal Variety Performance wins 6.2m viewers

ITV’s Royal Variety Performance 2011 dominated last night’s prime time ratings. The annual event, hosted by comedian Peter Kay, attracted a high of 6.7 million viewers.

The show, which was held at Salford Quays for the first time, with stars including Tony Bennett, Leona Lewis and Pixie Lott, pulled in more than 6.2 million average viewers and a 26.8% share on ITV1 – and a further 479,000 viewers on ITV1 HD – between 7.30pm and 10pm.

Elsewhere, BBC One’s The Truth About Adoption programme picked up 2.2 million average viewers in the 9pm to 10pm peak-hour, while Nick Knowles’ That’s Britain achieved a peak audience of more than 3.4 million viewers in the 7.30pm to 8.30pm slot.

On BBC Two, the new Steve Jobs documentary, Billion Dollar Hippy, banked a high of 1.5 million viewers and a 5.9% average audience share in the post-watershed slot, while MasterChef: The Professionals attracted over 3.1 million viewers and a 13.3% share in the 8pm to 9pm slot.

Channel 4’s new Thursday night line-up – A SuperScrimpers Christmas and Jamie’s Christmas with Bells on – attracted 1.3 million and 1.9 million average viewers respectively.

Meanwhile, the Fulham v Odense BK Europa League Football match scored a high of more than two million viewers for Channel 5.

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.