TV Overnights: ITV1’s new Father & Son drama starts on a high of 5.6m viewers

ITV1’s new hard-hitting drama Father & Son secured the 9pm to 10pm top spot with a high of 5.6 million peak viewers last night.

The first episode in the four-part series with Dougray Scott and Sophie Okonedo, which will be shown over consecutive nights this week, attracted more than 5.1 million average viewers and a 21.6% audience share during the hour-long slot.

BBC One’s new one-off documentary For Queen and Country was ITV1’s closest competitor for the peak-hour ratings, pulling in 3.2 million average viewers and a 13.5% audience share between 9pm and 10pm.

At the same time, BBC Two’s new Mary, Queen of Shops series picked up more than 2.6 million viewers and a 10.9% average audience share.

Meanwhile, Five aired its new Monday evening prime time line-up, starting with the return of the documentary series Police Interceptors at 8pm, David Jason: The Show Must Go On! at 9pm and The Simon Cowell Factor at 10pm.

However, the three hour-long shows failed to impressive viewers – the Police Interceptors pulled in the highest ratings with 907,000 viewers, while David Jason‘s real-life show picked up a low 511,000 viewers during the 9pm to 10pm peak-hour.

Over on Channel 4, the film premiere of Cloverfield, a drama starring TJ Miller, attracted 1.6 million average viewers and a 7.4% audience share between 9pm and 10.35pm.

Earlier on in the evening, the soaps dominated the pre-watershed ratings.  ITV1’s Coronation Street pipped Emmerdale and BBC One’s Eastenders to claim the highest overall ratings with 9.1 million peak viewers.  Emmerdale peaked with 7 million viewers, while Eastenders reached a high of 8.7 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.