UK Edition
Feeds
Silent Witness finished its run with a strong 6.13m (26.8%) for BBC One on Thursday night, according to early figures.
The twelfth series of the crime drama has averaged 5.99m (26%) across its twelve episodes, down only slightly on the previous series' 6.17m (25.9%) average.
The finale easily beat an ITV1 Tonight special, which had 2.38m (10.4%) in the 9pm hour. BBC Two's Never Mind The Buzzcocks put in 2.34m (10.1%), then the finale of comedy Beautiful People drew 1.33m (5.9%). Channel 4's documentary The Prince Charles Generation interested 1.65m (7.2%).
ITV1 won the 8pm hour, pulling in 5.02m (21.5%) for The Bill. BBC One started well, with Little Dorrit climbing to 4.01m (17.3%), but then the audience dropped to just 2.85m (12.1%) for the second episode of The People's Hospital. Autumnwatch attracted 3.08m (13.2%) to BBC Two, putting the channel ahead of Channel 4's River Cottage Autumn, which had 2.66m (11.4%) over the same period.
Five's coverage of the Uefa Cup game between Villa and Slavia Prague averaged a decent 1.31m (5.7%) between 7.30pm and 10pm, then the action movie Navy Seals kept 878k (7%).
Hollyoaks notched up 2.08m (10.1%) for Channel 4 at 6.30pm, then E4's first-look brought in 663k (3.6%) at 7pm (+1: 202k, 1.1%).
BBC One led primetime with an average audience share of 23.4%, but was down somewhat on last week's 28.4%. ITV1 took second with 17.5% (last week: 15.3%), followed by BBC Two on 8.8% (9%), Channel 4 on 7.5% (7.7%) and Five on 5.1% (3.8%).
BBC Three's EastEnders repeat logged the highest multichannel audience of the day, averaging 1.14m (6.8%) at 10pm.
On ITV2, the finale of Katie & Peter: The Next Chapter had a sizable 958k (4.8%) in the 9pm hour (+1: 166k, 1.1%). Sister channel ITV4's coverage of the Uefa Cup game between Man City and FC Twente drew 732k (3.7%) between 7pm and 10pm.
Elsewhere, Bones pulled in 507k (2.5%) for Sky1 and Film4's screening of I, Robot appealed to 455k (2.7%).
