Hot weather dents Sunday ratings

A surprisingly warm Easter Sunday affected ratings across the board yesterday, early figures suggest.

As usual, Coronation Street ranked as the day's top-rated programme but drew just 8.64 million viewers and a 42.3% share of the audience, around 20% down on normal. Emmerdale dropped to fourth with just 6.05m (32.7%).

The Royal had a strong 7.79m (36.1%) in the 8pm hour, comfortably topping BBC One's Mayo (3.09m, 14.2%), Channel 4's Invasion (1.31m, 6.1%) and Five's Everybody Hates Chris double bill (1.09m, 5%).

ITV1 held its lead at 9, with the two-hour Incredible Journey Of Mary Bryant drawing 6.29m (29.7%). On BBC One, the concluding part of The Queen At 80 documentary held a respectable 5.56m (24.1%).

Sky One maintained its dominance in multichannel households, meanwhile, peaking with 1.02m for a premiere episode of The Simpsons at 6.30pm. A two-hour Dream Team special had a so-so 287,000 from 7pm while at 9, 24 lifted numbers to 472,000. Rescue Me closed off prime with just 72,000.

ITV2 had an underwhelming night, beginning with 236,000 for an American Idol replay. A new episode of Supernatural drew around half its usual numbers, averaging 354,000 in the 9pm hour.

E4 maintained solid numbers throughout prime with its lineup of ER (214,000), first-run Invasion (432,000) and Desperate Housewives (217,000), while BBC Three had better success with a Doctor Who repeat (384,000) and Sunday night movie The Italian Job (541,000).