Doctor Who saw its overnight audience drop on Saturday night, early viewing figures indicate.
Steven Moffat story 'Day of the Moon', an explosive episode guest-starring Alex Kingston and Arthur Darvill, grabbed 5.39m (30.5%) from 6pm, down 1.1m on last week's series premiere.
The sci-fi drama was neither aided by its early timeslot, nor by the BBC One schedule surrounding it: just 1.39m (10.5%) watched Don't Scare The Hare at 5.30pm, while So You Think You Can Dance had 3.06m (16.7%) from 6.45pm, just pipped by Sing If You Can's 3.14m (17%) for ITV1.
Departures for Stephanie Powell and Gian Luca Loddo from the talent show logged 3.15m (13.9%) at 8.50pm, after which a Casualty instalment titled 'Momentum' took 4.64m (20.5%), beating Piers Morgan's Life Stories on ITV1, which interested 3.51m (15.5%) and 192k on timeshift as Ann Widdecombe sat in the chair.
Britain's Got Talent pulled in 9.08m (40%) at 8pm, enough to topple The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins's 4m (17.6%). Got Talent added 394k on +1, while Britain's Got More Talent with Stephen Mulhern averaged a hefty 1.19m (5.3%) for ITV2 and 178k on +1.
Over on BBC Two, coverage of the snooker World Championship scored 1.94m (7.4%) from 7pm, then Have I Got A Bit More News For You amused 1.83m (8.2%) at 9.45pm.
Elsewhere, Davina McCall's Million Pound Drop entertained 1.93m (8.6%) at 10pm, adding 268k on Channel 4 +1, while CSI: Miami managed 1.68m (9%) for Channel 5 at 10.15pm.
Overall, ITV1 led primetime with 21.6% (+1: 0.9%) to BBC One's 18.6%. BBC Two claimed third place with 8.5%, followed by Channel 4 with 6.2% (+1: 0.8%), and Channel 5 with 5.2%.
BARB ratings data supplied by Attentional
The BBC scheduling department has only itself to blame for the poor ratings. The latest Dr Who story should never have been split into two episodes. Neither part made any sense on its own. Both were shown ridiculously early in the evening and on a day when many people were away for the weekend. They were sandwiched between the dumbest new quiz show of all time and a failing talent show. CBBC had not even shut down yet so was competing with BBC1 for the same viewers.
