'Primeval' swipes 6.7 million viewers

ITV1 drama Primeval attracted 6.7 million viewers and a 29% audience share on Saturday night, up 1.1 million on the channel's slot average from last year.

The show, which stars Douglas Henshall as a scientist investigating why pre-historic monsters are turning up in the present day, maintained a strong position for ITV, after Harry Hill's TV Burp started the evening off with 6.1 million viewers and a 31% share at 5.55pm.

Dancing on Ice, which followed, managed 8.9 million viewers and a 40% share at 6.25pm.

Ant and Dec gameshow PokerFace drew 5.3 million viewers and a 22% share following Primeval, with Dancing on Ice: the Skate-Off pulling more viewers back with an audience of 6.2 million and a 26% share between 9.45pm and 10.15pm.

Primeval was up against BBC One's movie repeat Shrek for the most part. The animated feature managed 6.2 million viewers and a 27% share over its 80 minutes from 7.15pm.

Earlier, BBC One failed to beat ITV with Graham Norton show, When Will I Be Famous?, which managed just 3.7 million viewers and a 17% share, exactly 100,000 viewers less that last week.

Casualty pulled it back for the corporation, with a 32% share and 7.8 million viewers tuning in at 8.25pm.

Channel 4's Britain's Worst Weather drew in 1.6 million and a 6% share over an hour from 8.10pm, with Five movie Guns of the Magnificent Seven attracting 1.2 million and a 5% share. Five's biggest pull of the night was for CSI:New York, with 2.8 million tuning in.

On BBC Two, the third episode of The Comedy Map of Britain attracted 1.6 million viewers and an 8% share from 10.10pm.