5.7 million return to 'Life On Mars'

BBC One's Life On Mars returned for its second series last night with an audience of 5.7 million people and a 23.1% share.

The show managed a peak audience of 5.8 million at the start and end of the programme, but was slightly down on the channel's 6.5 million slot average of last year. The audience was also lower than the start of the previous series, which managed 7.5 million and a 28.3% share in January 2006.

It was also less than the first series average of 6.8 million and 25.9% share, with 7.4 million tuning in for the final episode.

BBC One had a better audience in the preceding hour, with Holby City taking an average 7.1 million and a 30.1% share at 8pm.

A first showing of Life On Mars' second episode did well for BBC Four, which pulled in 747,000 and a 4.59% share at 10pm.

The BBC One episode only just beat ITV1's Trial and Retribution at 9pm, which averaged 5.5 million and a 23% share, though this was down 1.2 million viewers from Monday's 6.7 million audience.

Channel 4's new reality show Never Did Me Any Harm, managed 2.2 million and a 8.9% share, with BBC Two's The Verdict pulling in 1.7 million and a 7% share over 90-minutes, a fall of 300,000 viewers since the show began on Sunday.

The final episode of ITV1's Fortune: Million Pound Giveaway ended with 3.8 million and a 6.3% share at 8pm.

The new series of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation took 2.7 million at 9pm on Five, but dropped slightly from last week's 3.1 million audience. CSI: Miami which followed had 2 million viewers and a 9.9% share.

Channel 4 comedy Shameless pulled in 2.6 million and a 13.1% share, a drop of 300,000 viewers since last week.