'Silent Witness' still tops Wednesday

Silent Witness kept up the ratings pace on Wednesday, winning its 9pm slot by a margin of almost 3 million viewers.

The third story in the twelfth series, 'Terror', began with an average of 6.01m (25.7%) for BBC One. ITV1 was second place, drawing 3.27m (14%) for the second instalment of Great Cities of the World with Griff Rhys Jones.

Heroes had a respectable 2.39m (10.1%) for BBC Two at 9pm, then behind-the-scenes programme Heroes Unmasked held on to 1.48m (6.6%). Channel 4's The Family put in 1.75m (7.5%) and 187,000 (1.2%) on timeshift, while Five notched up 1.59m (6.8%) for the second episode of Paul Merton In India.

ITV1 won the 8pm hour with 5.51m (24.1%) for The Bill. Sky Cops picked up 3.9m (17%) for BBC One, and 2.55m (11.1%) visited BBC Two's The Restaurant. Supernanny USA had 1.87m (8.2%) for Channel 4 and Five's Axe Men collected 980,000 (4.3%).

Coronation Street was up to 9.14m (42.2%) at 7.30pm. Emmerdale was also up, pulling in 7.04m (35.1%) at 7pm.

ITV1 was ahead in primetime overall with an average audience share of 23% (last week: 22.2%). BBC One had 20.9% (22%) for second, followed by BBC Two on 8.5% (8.6%), Channel 4 on 7.3% (8.4%) and Five on 4.3% (5.6%).

First-look Hollyoaks drew a mighty 1.32m (7.6%) to E4 at 7pm, helping the channel to a primetime share of 2%. Timeshift channel E4+1 had a share of 0.7%.

BBC Three had a sizable 3% primetime share, helped by a strong 599,000 (3%) audience for Wales's World Cup qualifier against Germany from 7.30pm. First-look Heroes brought in 884,000 (5.4%) at 10pm, then coverage of The Mobo Awards put in 162,000 (2.3%) over two hours.

ITV2 peaked with 494,000 (2.4%) for Jack Osbourne: Celebrity Adrenaline Junkie in the 9pm hour (+1: 125,000, 0.8%).

Ratings data supplied by Attentional