TV Overnights: BBC One’s new Life series claims the top spot

BBC One’s new prime time series Life debuted with almost 7 million peak viewers between 9pm and 10pm last night.

The ten-part documentary series with David Attenborough, which explores animal behaviour in the natural world, proved to be a hit for the channel during the all-important peak-slot.  Last night’s episode attracted over 6.4 million average viewers and a 26.3% audience share.

The last in the series of ITV’s Blue Murder, meanwhile, started off on a high of 5.1 million viewers but settled for 4.8 million average viewers and a 19.6% share throughout the hour-long slot.

Elsewhere, the new FlashForward series starring Joseph Fiennes continued to be a ratings winner for Five, pulling in more than 3 million average viewers and a 12.3% audience share between 9pm and 10pm.

The remaining two channels struggled to compete.  Channel 4’s penultimate Daredevils picked up just 928,000 viewers and a 3.7% share, while BBC Two’s Design for Life (which started at the later time of 9.15pm and ran until 10.15pm) pulled in 850,000 viewers and a 3.6% share.

Earlier on in the evening, BBC One and ITV1’s rival soaps came head to head.  Eastenders and Coronation Street both banked 9.3 million peak viewers, however, ITV1’s Corrie just managed to claim the top spot with an impressive 40.7% average audience share compared to Eastenders‘ 38.3% share.

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.