Palin’s Adventures Win 9pm Timeslot For BBC One

Michael Palin’s exploration of New Europe, which this week took him through Bulgaria to Turkey, was watched by just over 6.1 million adults on average last night, down from the series’ debut last week.

Palin’s adventure, which saw him attending ‘oil wrestling’ and featured his attempts at belly dancing, dropped more than one million viewers from the first show (see Palin Sees Off Hell’s Kitchen For Sunday Night Ratings Crown).

However, it still won the 9pm to 10pm timeslot for BBC One, with a 27.1% audience share, compared to a 24.9% share for Agatha Christie’s Marple for ITV1, which was on between 9pm and 11pm.

The first of four new films featuring the supersleuth gained an average adult audience of almost five million.

Meanwhile, over on BBC Two, the moving Stuart: A Life Backwards, which told the true story of the charity worked who befriended a homeless alcoholic and wrote a book about him, was seen by around 1.5 million on average, giving the channel a 7% share.

Saturday night saw ITV1 roll out its big guns, with the X Factor‘s last week of auditions getting more than 6.6 million adult viewers (42.6%) on average early in the evening, and Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Take Away reaching more than 5.6 million (31.4%).

Casualty, on BBC One between 8.30pm and 9.30pm, managed to beat Who Wants To Be A Millionaire over n ITV1, with the hospital drama attracting 5.8 million (30%) and the game show luring over 4.8 million (25%).

The World’s Greatest Elvis on BBC One also proved popular. The competition to find the best King drew more than 3.8 million adults between 9.30pm and 10pm on Saturday night, proving more popular than the bizarre “cutting edge special effects” of Elton John: Me, Myself and I, which managed just over three million (18.2%).

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