"Yep, they're watching ITV ... call BARB ..."
After a bumper evening of ratings on Sunday for ITV, the commercial television giant had further good news to celebrate today as their new police drama DCI Banks: Aftermath attracted more viewers than BBC’s flagship spy show Spooks which was screened at the same time.
The first episode of ITV1′s Stephen Tompkinson vehicle averaged 5.64 million viewers between 9pm and 10pm, a 23.5 per cent share of all television viewing.
Over on BBC One, the second episode of Spooks wasn’t far behind, averaging 5.212 (a 21.7 per cent share), inevitable falling slightly from the 5.583 viewers who watched the series nine opener.
Whilst the big two were battling it out for dramatic supremacy of the airwaves, BBC Two and Channel 4 put documentaries head to head in the same slot.
The victors were BBC Two, whose Horizon: Back from the Dead programme scooped 1.7 million viewers (7% share), just under 600,000 more viewers than Channel 4′s Titanic: The Mission which only achieved a 4.8 per cent audience share with its 1.15 million viewers.
It was also another good night for E4s comedy show The Inbetweeners which drew an impressive 2.28 million (11.5% share) viewers on the digital channel between 10pm and 10.30pm, only down slightly from the shows E4 audience record breaking series three premier where 2.6 million (12.5% share) viewers tuned in.
