Marple No Match For Ex-Python

The latest in a series of ITV1 adaptations of Agatha Christie’s most famous sleuth proved unable to defeat the might of the one-time Python Michael Palin.

Agatha Christie’s Marple pulled in an impressive average rating of five million adult viewers during the two-hour duration, with a peak audience of 5.3 million for the first 15 minutes.

Despite those ratings, Michael Palin’s New Europe over on BBC One outperformed the murder mystery by one million viewers. The latest instalment of Palin’s adventures, which saw him stopping off in Moldova and Romania, held the attention of 6.1 million viewers (with a peak of 6.3 for the 15 minutes between 9.30pm and 9.45pm).

On Saturday, ITV1’s broadcast of the latest movie awards show proved to be less popular than a comedy repeat, news and football on BBC One. The National Movie Awards which saw Daniel Radcliffe beating Johnny Depp to Best Male and Hot Fuzz win Best Comedy, attracted an average rating of three million viewers. While over on BBC One The Vicar of Dibley, Match of the Day and BBC News had ratings of 4.6 million , 3.7 million and 4.7 million respectively.

However, the bootcamp phase of The X Factor proved to be much more popular with viewers. Two editions of the music based reality show attracted ratings of over five and half million viewers. The first edition broadcast at 6.05pm was watched by 5.6 million, whilst the second edition at 8.30pm improved on that figure with 6.1 million watching.

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.

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