'CSI' binge delivers ratings for Five US

Four hours of back-to-back CSI: Crime Scene Investigation gave Five US a significant audience boost last night.

A lineup of episodes from seasons one, two and three, shown between 8pm and midnight, pushed the channel's all-hours share to 1.17%, up from a Monday average so far this year of 0.7%.

The most popular was the penultimate instalment of the second season, which drew 544,000 (2.86%) from 9pm.

Five US was the most-watched digital-only channel between 9pm and midnight when, combined with its +1 timeshift, it earned a 2.9% share. The closest multichannel competitor during the period was BBC Three, on 2.7%.

Both of Five's digital offshoots have seen decent year-on-year growth in their monthly audience shares - Fiver's rising from 0.4% in May last year to 0.6% and Five US from 0.6% to 0.7%.

Last night's terrestrial viewing was led by the soaps, with EastEnders drawing 8.3m (39.9%) from 8pm and Coronation Street attracting 8m (42%) and 7.8m (31.3%) at 7.30pm and 8.30pm respectively.

From 9pm, BBC One notched up the largest audience for Panorama since November with an instalment on the use of child labour in making clothes for Primark. Primark: On The Rack, which had gained widespread news coverage previously, drew 4.2m (19.3%).

ITV1 was just behind in the slot with another factual offering, Identical Triplets: Their Secret World, interesting 4m (18.5%).

BBC Two's Mary, Queen Of Shops drew a fair audience of 2.4m (11.2%) while the finale of Five's Warship, which saw the HMS Illustrious crew head home, was watched by 1.4m (6.5%).

Channel 4 history documentary Upstairs Downstairs Love attracted just 1.3m (6.1%) from 9pm, but ratings picked up at 10pm with 2.7m (15.4%) watching the night's Big Brother round-up.