TV Overnights: Big Fat Gypsy Wedding returns with 5m viewers

Channel 4’s Big Fat Gypsy Wedding won the all-important peak-hour ratings with a high of more than five million viewers last night.

The first in the new series of the popular fly-on-the-wall documentary banked over 4.8 million average viewers in the 9pm to 10pm prime time slot, ahead of BBC One’s Prisoner’s Wives and ITV1’s The Biggest Loser.

The Channel 4 show also secured 900,000 peak viewers on Channel 4 +1 between 10pm and 11pm.

BBC One’s Prisoner’s Wives attracted 4.2 million peak viewers and a 17.3% average audience share between 9pm and 10pm, while ITV1’s The Biggest Loser pulled in 2.2 million peak viewers and an 8.6% average share.

At the same time, BBC Two’s How to Grow a Planet picked up 1.5 million average viewers and a 6.3% share, while Channel 5’s Body of Proof achieved an average audience of more than 1.3 million viewers and a 5.6% share.

In the pre-watershed slots, ITV1’s Emmerdale peaked with 7.2 million viewers between 7pm and 7.30pm, before BBC One’s Eastenders won a high of  8.5 million viewers. In the 8pm to 9pm slot,the Beeb’s Holby City enjoyed a peak audience of more than 5.4 million viewers.

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.