TV Overnights: BBC One’s Silent Witness secures the peak-hour audience share

BBC One’s popular Silent Witness series continued with a high of more than 6.2 million viewers during the 9pm to 10pm peak-hour last night.

The crime drama attracted over 6.1 million average viewers and a 24.7% audience share, which put it well ahead of its rival terrestrial channels during the hour-long slot.

ITV1’s long-running police drama The Bill, with Sally Rogers, Sam Callis and Barry Sloane, pulled in 3.8 million average viewers and a 15.6% share to take second place, while Five’s new Extreme Fishing with Robson Green series returned with 1.2 million average viewers and a 5.1% audience share.

BBC Two, meanwhile, split its peak-time line-up into two.  The new series of Mock the Week attracted more than 2.5 million viewers in the 9pm to 9.30pm slot, before a new addition to the channel’s schedule Rab C Nesbitt pulled in 2 million viewers between 9.30pm and 10pm.

Elsewhere, Channel 4’s Dispatches Special – The Slumdog Children of Mumbai – which revealed the brutal reality of life on the streets and in the slums of Mumbai, picked up more than 2.1 million peak viewers and a 7.8% average audience share.

Earlier on in the evening, BBC One’s Eastenders beat ITV1’s Corrie to the top soap spot.  Eastenders‘ pulled in almost 10 million peak viewers, compared to Coronation Street‘s 9.4 million.

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.