TV Overnights: Spooks wins Monday night battle

BBC1’s long running spy-drama Spooks narrowly edged the primetime ratings battle with ITV1’s Whitechapel last night, watched by an average of 200,000 more viewers.

Last night’s episode, focussing on secret peace process meetings between Israel and Palestine, attained an average of 5.3 million viewers between 9pm and 10pm. This compares to 5.1 million people who tuned in the second part of ITV1’s crime drama.

Earlier in the night Panorama‘s account of the Chilean mining disaster predictably lost out to ratings banker Coronation Street. 2.7 million people watched the documentary’s report on safety concerns about the Chilean mine before its collapse, nearly 6 million less than the second helping from Weatherfield’s most famous street.

Elsewhere the final episode of E4’s The Inbetweeners, which saw the hapless sixth formers going on a disastrous camping trip, pulled in 2.6 million viewers and an 11.7% viewing share.

BBC2 enjoyed success during 8pm to 9pm slot, with both University Challenge and MasterChef: The Professionals grabbing over 3.1 million viewers.

Channel 4’s best rated programme was the afternoon favourite Come Dine With Me, with 2.2 million people tuning into the first of five Barnsley dinner parties. Long running Australian soap opera Neighbours was the highest rated Channel Five programme, with 1.3 million viewers

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.