The new series of Scott & Bailey won the all-important prime time ratings for ITV1 between 9pm and 10pm last night.
The first episode of the eight part drama starring Suranne Jones and Lesley Sharp attracted more than 6.7 million peak viewers on ITV1 and an extra 539,000 peak viewers on ITV1 HD.
The drama beat BBC One’s Empire, The Tube and Embarrassing Bodies to the top spot.
The third episode of BBC One’s Empire with Jeremy Paxman pulled in a much lower 2.6 million average viewers and a 10.7% audience share during the hour-long slot.
BBC Two’s The Tube continued with 1.9 million average viewers – peaking with over two million in the last 30 minutes – and a 7.8% share.
Meanwhile, Channel 4’s Embarrassing Bodies peaked with more than 2.6 million viewers and a 10.2% share.
On Channel 5, the Guy Ritchie crime thriller Revolver enjoyed a peak audience of more than one million viewers but settled on 905,000 in the post-watershed slot.
The early evening slots were dominated by the soaps – with ITV1’s Coronation Street banking the top ratings of the night. The soap secured over 9.2 million peak viewers in the 7pm to 7.30pm slot, beating BBC One’s Eastenders, which reached a high of 8.1 million viewers at 8pm.
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.