Ratings: Children In Need 2011 averages over 10m viewers

Children In Need hit great heights last night as the charity telethon convincingly topped last year's show, overnight data reveals.



BBC One's coverage of the event averaged 10m (39%) between 7.30pm and 10pm, peaking with a colossal 12m (48%) at 8pm as viewers caught a glimpse of Doctor Who's Christmas special.

Shifted to BBC Two at 10pm, a Never Mind The Buzzcocks special amused 4.06m (18.4%), then 3.56m (38.4%) returned to BBC One at 10.45pm until 2am.

A Children In Need-themed One Show kicked off the evening with 6.74m (30.2%), one of the magazine show's best ever audiences.

As a result, BBC One boasted an impressive primetime share of 35.7%, the channel's best Friday performance all year.

Despite the BBC's dominance, I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! and ITV1 held up better than expected, with the jungle reality show up 800k year-on-year to 6.47m (24.7%) in the 9pm hour and 360k (1.7%) on +1 for model Emily Scott's arrival.

Alongside respectable audiences for the soaps, Ray Mears's Wild Britain interested 3.07m (12.2%) at 8pm when Children in Need was at its strongest. Overall, ITV1 took 20.8% (+1: 0.6%) in primetime.

BBC Two finished third with a 6.9% share, as Autumnwatch Live and Unsprung pulled in 1.3m (4.9%) and 1.15m (4.4%) between 8.30pm and 10pm, prior to which 1.27m (5%) watched Mastermind.

Channel 4's dependable Come Dine with Me served up 910k (3.5%) in the 8pm hour, then Transporters 3 attracted 1.02m (4.4%) until 11.15pm (+1: 232k/1.4%), boosting the network's primetime share to 3.7% (+1: 0.5%).

Thanks largely to Lewis, which was the most-watched multichannel offering with 902k (3.9%), ITV3 averaged 2.8% in primetime.

Without Big Brother, Channel 5 tumbled to a dismal 2.1%, with Vacancy (526k/2.2%) and Tamara Ecclestone: Billion Dollar Girl (374k/2.5%) both performing poorly.