ITV1 secures a spectacular peak-run in the weekend ratings war

ITV1 managed to hold the peak audience from 3pm onwards yesterday, with an impressive run of The Boat Race 2009 coverage, a Harry Potter film, all-new Lewis and Piers Morgan’s Life Stories.

Craig Doyle hosted this year’s Oxford Vs Cambridge boatrace, which kick-started ITV’s peak-run with more than 3.7 million peak viewers and a 20.2% average audience share between 2.20pm and 4.30pm.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets managed to fill Dancing on Ice‘s void, pulling in a respectable 5.3 million peak viewers and a 23.5% share between 5pm and 8pm.

Lewis followed with an impressive 6.9 million peak viewers and a 24.6% share from 8pm to 10pm, while the penultimate episode in the Piers Morgan’s Life Stories series, which looked at the life of Ulrika Jonsson, attracted 4.1 million and a 21.2% share between 10pm and 11pm.

However, BBC One also had a fairly good weekend in terms of ratings and banked the peak audience for the new Grand Prix season on Sunday at 1pm, as well as the all-important evening slots on Friday and Saturday.

BBC One’s new reality series, The Real Swiss Family Robinson, kicked-off the channel’s peak-run on Friday at 9pm, with over 4.5 million peak viewers and a 19.4% average share.

Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, with stars Barbara Windsor, Larry Lamb and Rhys Ifans, followed on from BBC News at Ten, attracting 3.8 million peak viewers and a 23.8% share.

The channel’s classic Saturday evening line-up of The National Lottery, Casualty, BBC News and Live at the Apollo also managed to secure the peak audience between 7.15pm and 10.15pm.

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.