New ITV thriller The Ice Cream Girls debuted with 4.87m viewers (21.3%) on Friday at 9pm, overnight data shows.
The first episode of the three-part series, based on the 2010 book by Dorothy Koomson, featured Jodhi May and Lorraine Burroughs as former friends who are reunited 17 years after being accused of murdering their schoolteacher as teenagers.
In the same timeslot on BBC One, Have I Got News for You earned 4.77m (20.9%), while Not Going Out's ratings continued to drop with 3.66m (16%).
Earlier, The One Show brought in 3.48m (18.8%) at 7pm, while MasterChef attracted 3.82m (16.4%) at 8.30pm. The Graham Norton Show amused 3.32m (23.4%) at 10.45pm.
On BBC Two, The Genius of Josiah Wedgwood was seen by 1.61m (7.1%) at 9pm. Gardener's World interested 2.40m (10.3%) half an hour earlier.
The Martin Lewis Money Show brought 2.99m (13.7) to ITV at 8pm. Movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall, starring Jason Segel, Mila Kunis and Russell Brand, attracted 630k (6.1%) from 10.45pm.
Meanwhile, Channel 4's 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown mustered 1.3m (5.7%) at 8pm and Alan Carr's latest Chatty Man at 9pm was seen by 910k (5.2%).
The Mentalist grabbed 1.06m (4.6%) on Channel 5 at 9pm, while Ice Road Truckers earned 896k (4%) in the preceding hour.
Acclaimed 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption performed best across the digital channels, earning 683k (3.8%) for ITV2 at 9pm.
