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.
Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2011 10:28 pm