Man United dent Frank's funeral ratings

The funeral of Frank Butcher on EastEnders was watched by a relatively unimpressive audience of 9.7m on Tuesday night.

The 7.30pm episode, which also saw Bianca Jackson (Patsy Palmer) return to Walford, attracted a 43% share of viewers for BBC One.

Despite easily winning the slot, it was not a particularly good performance for the soap, which on Monday drew 10.3m (43.2%) for the return of Frank's son Ricky (Sid Owen).

The show was dedicated to Mike Reid, who played Frank until his death last summer.

EastEnders faced tough competition in the form of ITV1's Champions League coverage of Manchester United against AS Roma. The match, which started at 7.45pm, averaged 7.5m (31%) while the entire show drew 6.4m (26.6%) from 7.30-10pm.

BBC One continued to suffer at 8pm when 6.2m (25.4%) watched Holby City - 500,000 fewer than last week. At 9pm Hotel Babylon dropped 600,000 on last week to reach 4.6m (19.6%) across the hour.

Elsewhere at 9pm, BBC Two's Super Rich: the Greed Game drew 1.7m (7%), Channel 4's The Diets That Time Forgot interested 1.4m (6.1%) and a CSI repeat on Five reached 1.6m (6.9%).

> Click here for the Digital Spy recap of last night's EastEnders