Piers Morgan's Life Stories last night achieved its best audience in two-and-a-half years, overnight data shows.
Morgan's hour-long interview with Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean attracted an impressive 5.85m (24.9%) to ITV from 9pm, appealing to a further 360,000 on +1.
The CNN broadcaster's 56th programme was its fourth most popular, and most watched since November 2010 when Susan Boyle appeared.
However, Morgan had little in the way of competition, its nearest rival being a BBC One repeat of New Tricks, which took 3.3m (14.1%).
A Vicar of Dibley classic preceded the crime drama with 2.9m (12%) in the 8.30pm slot, soundly beaten by Coronation Street.
Against BBC One's EastEnders, ITV's Wild Britain with Ray Mears mustered 2.87m (12.5%) at 8pm (+1: 129k).
BBC Two and Channel 5's best-rated programmes came during the 8pm hour, with Gardeners' World interesting 2.24m (9.2%) and 5's Ice Road Truckers entertaining 1.11m (4.7%).
Two's documentary Wild Arabia then educated 2.09m (9.9%) at 9pm, while The Mentalist had 1.07m (4.6%), as well as 146k on timeshift.
At the same time, 1.28m (5.4%) watched 8 Out of 10 Cats on Channel 4 (+1: 251k), after which Alan Carr's Chatty Man wowed 1.39m (7.8%) and 251k an hour later.
Overall, ITV won the night with a primetime share of 23.4% (+1: 0.9%), beating BBC One's 18%. BBC Two followed with 7.7%, ahead of Channel 4's 4.5% (+1: 0.7%), and 5's 3.7% (+1: 0.4%).
CBeebies show Chuggington was the most-watched multichannel broadcast of the day with 657k (4.3%).
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2013 7:53 pm