Celebrity Big Brother rises to 2.4m on Friday night...

Celebrity Big Brother recorded its best audience since launching over a fortnight ago on Friday night (January 18).



Some 2.4m (9.2%) watched the Channel 5 reality show's eviction special in the 9pm hour as ex-EastEnders star Gillian Taylforth left the house. A further 164,000 watched on +1.

Celebrity Big Brother's fortunes contrast favourably with last week's live eviction show, which lost out to Channel 4's popular one-off documentary 16 Kids and Counting.

However, American Idol followed at 10pm with just 696k (3.5%), while 4's new Paddy McGuinness vehicle Paddy's TV Guide achieved a higher 1.3m (6.3%) and 157k on +1.

Popular panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats, extended to an hour, amused 1.84m (7.1%) versus Big Brother at 9pm.

BBC One's Silent Witness won the slot with 5.87m (22.7%), easily outperforming ITV comedy Great Night Out which held 2.95m (11.5%) and added 253,000 on timeshift.

Elsewhere, Mastermind (2.09m/8.1%) and QI (1.54m/7.2%) pulled in strong ratings for BBC Two. Meanwhile, Room 101 (3.99m/15.2%) and The Graham Norton Show (4.03m/26.3%) performed well for BBC One.

Overall, BBC One led primetime with 23.4% against ITV's 19.7% (+1: 0.7%). BBC Two took third place with 5.5%, ahead of Channel 5's 5.2% (+1: 0.4%), and Channel 4's 4.8% (+1: 0.9%).