Not Going Out rallied to a series high for the last episode of its sixth run last night (Friday).
The Lee Mack sitcom pulled in a slot-winning 4.69m (20.9%) at 9.30pm, increasing over 500k week-on-week.
With another batch of episodes due next year, the comedy has increased its average audience (4.3m) on the 2011 series (4.1m), despite airing in the spring instead of winter.
Have I Got News For You - guest hosted by Kathy Burke - gave Not Going Out a solid lead-in of 5.43m (23.8%), while 3.68m (15.9%) watched Would I Lie To You? at 8.30pm.
The Graham Norton Show, featuring Will Smith, Gary Barlow and Sir Tom Jones, jumped to a new series high of 4.08m (28.2%) from 10.35pm.
Elsewhere, Lulu's turn on Piers Morgan's Life Stories attracted 4.55m (20.1%) to ITV1 in the 9pm hour, and 247k on timeshift. The News at Ten interested a larger-than-usual 2.26m (11.9%) at 10pm (+1: 113k), closing the gap on BBC News, which had 4.16m (21.2%).
Poms in Paradise performed respectably against a popular edition of EastEnders, grabbing 2.99m (13.4%) at 8pm (+1: 138k). ITV's soaps also drew typically strong audiences between 7pm and 9pm.
Over on BBC Two, Coast (1.94m/8.7%) and Mastermind (2.05m/8.8%) scored good numbers, but the channel's audience fell for Maestro at the Opera (873k/3.9%) at 9pm and Episodes (984k/5.1%) an hour later.
Channel 4 stayed under the million mark until 10pm with Come Dine with Me (875k/3.8%), 8 Out of 10 Cats (960k/4.2%) and Very Important People (904k/4%). However, the programmes added 211k, 285k and 127k respectively.
Comedian Alan Carr attracted 1.43m (8.3%) for his chatshow at 10pm, appealing to a further 258k on Channel 4 +1 an hour later.
The Mentalist anchored Channel 5's night with 1.53m (6.7%) in the 9pm hour, with Dirty Great Machines (769k/3.4%) and Castle (823k/4.6%) airing either side of the hit import.
BBC One overtook ITV1 overall in primetime, averaging 23.2% to the commercial network's 21.8% (+1: 0.8%). BBC Two claimed third place with 6.3%, comfortably ahead of Channel 4's 4.5% (+1: 0.7%), and Channel 5's 4.4% (+1: 0.2%).
