TV Overnights: England’s win scores a high of 6.8m viewers

ITV1’s Live International Football coverage scored the prime time ratings last night with a high of almost 6.8 million viewers.

The Denmark v England game, which saw England win 2-1 at FC Copenhagen’s ground, attracted 5.6 million average viewers and a 23.1% audience share between 7pm and 9.30pm.

The football dominated most of the prime time schedule, however, BBC Two’s new four-part documentary A History of Ancient Britain managed to win the peak ratings from 9.15pm onwards.

The first episode, which saw Neil Oliver explore how Britain came to be, peaked with 2.9 million viewers throughout most of the all-important 9pm to 10pm slot, seeing off competition from BBC One’s Panorama and Channel 4’s Mary Portas: Secret Shopper.

The last in the series of the popular C4 show pulled in 2.3 million viewers and a 10% average audience share between 9pm and 10pm, as did Channel 5’s NCIS.

However, BBC One’s new one-off Panorama documentary Forgotten Heroes settled on a lower 2.1 million viewers and a 9% average audience share.

Earlier on in the evening, BBC One’s Waterloo Road banked 4.6 million viewers and a 18% average share in the pre-watershed 8pm to 9pm slot, while BBC Two’s new three-part Madagascar series – narrated by David Attenborough – secured 3.6 million viewers and a 14.1% 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.