Masterchef tops Thursday with 5.5 million viewers

Masterchef topped the ratings for a third night running on Thursday (March 12), according to overnight figures.



The BBC One cooking series scored its highest numbers of the week with 5.45m (27.7%) at 7.30pm. Later, Comic Relief: Operation Health gathered 2.72m (13.4%) at 9pm and Question Time averaged 2.60m (26.5%) at 10.45pm.

On BBC Two, Nature's Weirdest Events continued with 1.37m (7.1%) at 7pm, before The Great British Sewing Bee entertained 3.03m (13.7%) at 8pm.

Russell Tovey's period drama Banished lost more than one million viewers for its second episode, with 2.38m (11.7%) tuning in at 9pm.

ITV's coverage of Everton's Europa League victory brought in 2.77m (13.3%) from 7.30pm (37k/0.2% on +1).

Channel 4's Cucumber concluded its eight episode run with 580k (2.9%) at 9pm, while a further 84k (0.6%) tuned in on +1. Earlier, The Supervet was seen by 1.39m (6.3%) at 8pm (341k/0.9%).

On Channel 5, Britain's Worst Crimes was seen by 942k (4.3%) at 8pm (146k/0.7%), while Holiday Love Rats Exposed entertained 1.18m (5.8%) at 9pm (134k/0.9%). The Mentalist thrilled 700k (4.5%) at 10pm (58k/0.7%).

ITV2's Keith Lemon Sketch Show tickled 511k (3.1%) at 10pm. On Sky1, Arrow attracted 283k (1.3%) at 8pm, while Sky Atlantic's Fortitude dipped to 344k (1.7%) at 9pm.