Overnights: All-new Top Gear is a hit

BBC Two’s all-new Top Gear kicked-off with a bang last night, pulling in an impressive 7.7 million peak viewers.

The first episode of the new seven-part series, with Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, attracted almost 7 million average viewers and a 30.1% audience share during the 8pm to 9pm slot.

BBC Two’s new one-off documentary, James May on the Moon, strategically followed with a high of 5.3 million viewers in the first fifteen minutes and a respectable 15.5% average share between 9pm and 10pm.

However, ITV1’s Kingdom, starring Stephen Fry, managed to secure the peak audience for the majority of the all-important peak-hour with 4.5 million average viewers and a 19.6% share.

On Saturday, BBC One stole the show with a peak run of Casualty, Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow, BBC News and the film Firewall from 8.30pm onwards.

The long-running hospital drama Casualty picked up the highest ratings of the evening with 5.2 million average viewers and a 25.6% audience share.

BBC One also enjoyed a peak-run on Friday evening with the return of Hotel Babylon, followed by BBC News and Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.

Ex-Eastenders‘ star Nigel Harman’s addition to the Hotel Babylon cast proved to be a hit with viewers as the show attracted more than 4.3 million peak viewers and a 20.1% average share during the peak-hour.

At the same time, Channel 4’s Big Brother picked up 2.1 million average viewers, down by nearly half a million on last week’s Friday night eviction and down significantly on last year’s ratings.

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.