BBC wins New Year's Eve ratings

BBC One won the battle for TV audiences on New Year's Eve, with a peak of over 10 million tuning in for the first few seconds of 2009.

The corporation's New Year's Eve Live programme averaged a strong 6.05m (37.6%) between 10.50pm and 12.20am, with a peak of 10.58m (61.2%) coming at 12.05am.

It had more than three times the audience of ITV1's celebrations. Elton's New Year's Eve Party, a live concert from the O2 Arena, appealed to 1.86m (12.7%) between 11.15pm and 12.50am.

BBC Two also had a higher audience than ITV1 as midnight approached, with 2.73m (19.7%) watching Jools' Annual Hootennany between 10.55pm and 1.15am.

ITV1 had the best numbers of the day in Coronation Street, however, with 7.83m (37.1%) at 7.30pm. Emmerdale was second with 6.49m (30.9%).

At 8pm, The Bill took 4.4m (23.1%) for ITV1, outrating the 4.05m (21.3%) for BBC One's Weakest Link Special.

BBC One crept back ahead at 9pm with a screening of comedy movie Meet The Fockers, which amused 3.93m (22.5%). A repeat of the one-off Martin Clunes drama The Man Who Lost His Head brought in 2.68m (15.6%) to ITV1 and on BBC Two, 1.72m (9.9%) consumed Chocolat.

Channel 4 had 1.21m (6.7%) for Tony Robinson and The Medieval Reincarnation, then 0.88m (5.4%) for a rerun of The Big Fat Quiz of the Year.

Five welcomed 1.37m (7.7%) for An Audience With Bruce Forsyth at 9pm, then Bruce Forsyth's Comedy Heroes was seen by 913k (5.5%).

ITV1 had the overall lead in primetime, with an average share of 22.8% (last week: 24.8%) to BBC One's 21.9% (30.1%). BBC Two was third with 9.9% (8%), followed by Five with 5.7% (3.1%) and Channel 4 with 5% (5.8%).

Ratings data supplied by Attentional