TV Overnights: BBC One’s new Lost Land of the Tiger wins the highest peak-time ratings

BBC One’s new three-part nature programme Lost Land of the Tiger debuted with more than 4.9 million peak viewers last night.

The hour-long show, with Alan Rabinowitz, Justine Evans and George McGavin, helped BBC One continue its early-evening peak run in to the post-watershed slots. Lost Land of the Tiger attracted 4.8 million average viewers and a 20.7% audience share between 9pm and 10pm.

The channel also banked the highest ratings from 7.30pm onwards with Eastenders and Holby City. BBC One’s flagship soap peaked with 8.6 million viewers and a 24.2% share as familiar faces Kat and Alfie returned to Albert Square, while hospital drama Holby pulled in 5.6 million viewers and a 24.2% share.

BBC One also held on to the peak audience share from 10pm onwards, with little competition from its rival terrestrial channels.

ITV1’s peak-hour reality show 71 Degrees North saw the second highest ratings, with 3.2 million average viewers and a 13.9% audience share. Although the commercial channel’s Emmerdale provided the more impressive figures, with 6.3 million peak viewers and a 32.3% average audience share between 7pm and 7.30pm.

ITV1’s New Who Wants to Be a Millionaire with presenter Chris Tarrant was also a hit in the 8pm to 9pm slot – pulling in 3.4 million average viewers and a 14.7% share.

At the same time, Channel 5’s ever-popular CSI: Miami picked up over two million average viewers, while Channel 4’s Ramsay’s Best Restaurant pulled in 1.7 million viewers.

Over on BBC Two, the new part-improvised drama exploring some of the problems encoutered by inner-city schools Excluded attracted 1.1 million peak viewers and a 4.7% share during the all-important 9pm to 10pm peak-hour.

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.