Almost Six Million Stick With Palin’s Adventures

Globetrotting jet setter, Michael Palin, continued to entertain viewers with his New Europe series, gaining an average adult audience of more than 5.8 million for BBC One last night.

Palin’s travels took him to Hungary and the Ukraine, where, as ever, he encountered colourful characters and explored the evolving regions of Britain’s newest neighbours.

The episode, which ended with Palin swirling around on a nauseating amusement ride, gave the channel a 25.7% audience share between 9pm and 10pm, ahead of Louis Theroux: Under the Knife over on BBC Two.

Theroux’s latest challenge, looking at plastic surgery in the US, gained an impressive 3.1 million adult viewers for the station, a 13.8% share, whilst Scotland fought a brave battle with Argentina over on ITV1.

Earlier, results programmes for The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing went head to head. The decision on who to send to the final of the singing contest was watched by just over six million adults on ITV1 (29.7%), whilst more than 6.1 million (30.8%) preferred to see which celeb was knocked out of the dancing comp on BBC One.

On Saturday evening, more than 6.4 million (36.9%) on average tuned in to Strictly Come Dancing between 6pm and 7.30pm, whilst The X Factor drew more than 5.9 million (32.2%).

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, ITV2 and Sky One.

BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com