TV Overnights: I’m a Celeb bites back with 8.9 million viewers

ITV1’s special-length I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! increased its ratings last night, pulling in 8.9 million peak viewers and a 32% average audience share.

The reality show had slipped down to 8.6 million peak viewers on Tuesday night after starting off on a high of 10.4 million viewers on Sunday evening and 9.7 million viewers on Monday.

However, the arrival of the retired boxer Joe Bugner and the live bush-tucker trial helped boost the show’s ratings back up to near the 9 million peak viewers mark.

I’m a Celebrity finished off ITV1’s peak run, which started with Emmerdale at 7pm.  The Yorkshire-based soap pulled in 6.6 million peak viewers during the 30-minute slot.

The channel’s special one-off Celebrating the Carpenters – which saw Amanda Holden and Ronan Keating introduce tribute performances of the pop duo’s songs to mark the 40th anniversary of their first LP – followed with 5.6 million viewers and a 25.4% share.

I’m a Celebrity started after the Carpenters’ show at 8.30pm and secured the top spot up until to 10pm, seeing off competition from Spooks, Andrew Marr’s The Making of Modern Britain and The Family during the all-important 9pm to 10pm peak-hour.

BBC One’s Spooks, starring Peter Firth and Richard Armitage, attracted 4.6 million average viewers and a 18.2% audience share during the hour-long slot, while BBC Two’s The Making of Modern Britain documentary picked up 2.4 million average viewers and a 9.6% share.

Channel 4’s The Family series, meanwhile, continued with 1.1 million viewers and a 4.3% share.  Elsewhere, Five’s 9 o’clock action thriller Swordfish pulled started off with a low 774,000 viewers but picked up to a high of 1.1 million towards the end of the film.

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.