Return Of Doc Martin Beats Silent Witness

The return of Doc Martin to ITV1 last night gave the channel a peak audience of 7.1 million adult viewers (a 32.9% share) in the 9pm slot.

This was easily ahead of BBC One’s offering, Silent Witness, which could only manage a peak of 5.5 million adults (a 25.5% share) in the same timeslot.

An average of 6.9 million adults stuck with the Martin Clunes show on ITV1, which last night featured a dinner lady’s daughter getting into some trouble because of some dodgy diet pills.

On Five at 9pm there was a highly emotional documentary about a two year old boy suffering from primordial dwarfism.

The programme, which looked at how the tiny little lad and his parents cope, had a peak audience of 1.8 million adults.

Also harrowing, but for vastly different reasons, was Channel 4’s It’s A Free World. The drama, directed by Ken Loach, focused on an illegal employment service for London’s immigrant workers.

The realistic drama deserved more than a peak of 794,000 adults, although perhaps it may have just been too much for some to handle.

On BBC One at 8.30pm was the latest instalment of the current affairs strand Panorama. It examined whether the National DNA Database can protect us and also how it might impinge on our civil liberties.

A peak audience of three million adults watched the slightly scary investigation, whilst an average of 2.8 million adults stayed with it for the show’s half hour duration.

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 Five: 020 7550 5555 www.five.tv Channel Four: 020 7396 4444 www.channel4.com