Whately Wins For ITV1
The return of Inspector Morse spin-off, Lewis, drew around 7.2 million adults to ITV1 last night, giving the station a 32.5% audience share in primetime.
A year on from the pilot episode, Sunday night saw the return of Kevin Whately as the late Inspector Morse’s sidekick, now teamed up with a new partner.
As Lewis‘ murder investigation was unfolding, the Waking The Dead team was trying to piece together its own clues. At the end of January, the show managed to lure more than 6.5 million adult viewers to BBC One, but its audience numbers dwindled upon the return of a much-loved character to Britain’s screens.
Around 5.1 million adults watched the show last night, which sees its series finale tonight, giving BBC one a 20.6% viewing share.
Wild At Heart remained strong against Rough Diamond, BBC One’s family drama set against the backdrop of the horseracing business in rural Ireland. The show, which started in early February this year, was seen by almost 3.8 million adults on average (15.5%), whilst the Trevanion family’s African escapades fared rather better.
ITV1 scored an average adult audience of 6.7 million for the programme, which last night starred Hayley Mills as the mother of Sarah Trevanion (Amanda Holden), giving the channel a 27.5% viewing share.
Dancing On Ice remained strong on Saturday night, gaining almost 7.1 million adult viewers for the first programme (compared to 7.8 million for the first show of the series five weeks ago). The programme gave ITV1 a 36.7% viewing share for the first edition, and 29.7% or 6.1 million for the skate-off.
Other ITV1 winter flagship, Primeval, dropped almost one million viewers from its debut last week (see Lost’s Audience Still Out At Sea On Sky One). Around 5.2 million adults stuck with the action-packed sci-fi adventures of a team of scientists battling prehistoric creatures that appear through rips in time, compared to the 6.1 million who tuned in to the previous episode.
Vera Drake earned Channel 4 some success on Saturday night, with the Mike Leigh film attracting more than 2.6 million viewers to the channel (14%), whilst CSI: NY gained almost 2.1 million (9.6%) for Five.
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, ITV2 and Sky One.
BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com Channel 4: 020 7396 4444 www.channel4.com Five: 020 7550 5555 www.five.tv