Channel 4's 'Cancer' telethon peaks with 2.1m viewers

Channel 4's star-studded Stand Up to Cancer telethon averaged 1.2m over six and a half hours last night, early overnight data shows.



Hosted by Davina McCall, Alan Carr and Dr Christian Jessen, the charity fundraiser pulled in an 8.2% audience share between 7.30pm and 2am, peaking with around 2.1m for Cheryl Cole's performance.

Channel 4 enjoyed its most popular Friday night since early last month during the Paralympic Games thanks to the broadcast, which raised £6 million for charity.

Elsewhere, Piers Morgan's Life Stories scored an unexpected high for the secrets of actress Felicity Kendal - the programme logged 4.14m (18.3%) for ITV1 in the 9pm hour and 201k (1.1%) on +1.

However, Have I Got News For You remained dominant for BBC One with 5.15m (22.4%) in its usual half-hour slot from 9pm.

At 9.30pm, the second episode of romantic comedy Mr and Mrs Jones could only muster 2.42m (11%), down 700k on last week's opener.

Stephen Fry's QI led BBC Two's night with a solid 2.21m (11.1%) at 10pm, while Mastermind (2.01m/8.8%), Gardeners' World (2.03m/8.6%) and Natural World (1.97m/8.8%) drew almost identical audiences earlier on.

Eddie Stobart: Trucks and Trailers kicked off Channel 5's peak time schedule with 1.01m (4.3%), but football documentary Being Liverpool netted just 554k (2.5%) an hour later.

Overall, ITV1 beat BBC One to score another Friday night primetime victory, with 22.4% (+1: 0.7%) versus 19.1%. BBC Two claimed third place with 7.7%, just ahead of Channel 4's 7.7% (+1: 0.5%), and way clear of Channel 5's 2.6% (+1: 0.2%).

More 4, which also averaged 2.6% across primetime, managed to tie with Channel 5's fifth place due to its airing of Taken (967k/4.7%), which was the biggest multichannel show of the day.