'Ladies of Letters' delivers 938k for ITV3

ITV3's first original comedy drama made a stellar start in the ratings last night (Tuesday), according to early figures.

Ladies of Letters stars Maureen Lipman and Anne Reid as a pair of elderly widows who meet at a wedding and then start exchanging letters. The first episode averaged a decent 938k (5.1%) for the channel in the half hour from 10pm.

The only multichannel programme that fared better was BBC Three's repeat of EastEnders, seen by 1.1m (5.9%) at the same time.

E4's first look at the next episode of Shameless was also popular last night, with 664k (8.2%) in the 11pm hour and 69k (1.9%) on timeshift.

The channel's screening of Hollyoaks drew 660k (3.2%) at 7pm but was outdone by Fiver's Home & Away, which managed 751k (3.7%) at 6.30pm.

In primetime, an hour-long Emmerdale brought in 7.02m (29.1%) to ITV1 from 7pm. On BBC One at the same time, The One Show put in a sizable 5.85m (25.1%) then EastEnders snagged 7.45m (29.9%).

Holby City won the 8pm hour for BBC One, with 6.43m (25.6%) tuning in. Oz and James Drink To Britain had 3.58m (14.5%) for BBC Two in the first half of the hour, then Masterchef improved the audience to 3.95m (15.5%).

Channel 4's Supersize vs Superskinny appealed to 2.67m (10.6%), outdoing the 2.58m (10.3%) audience for ITV1's new documentary series Doctors and Nurses at War. Five's Egyptian Monster Moves repeat interested 1.34m (5.4%).

At 9pm Channel 4 aired controversial new documentary series Boys and Girls Alone, a social experiment following a group of ten young girls and ten young boys living alone in separate villages for a fortnight. The first episode drew a respectable 2.37m (10.1%) for the hour, with an additional 229k (1.4%) watching via Channel 4+1.

BBC One won the slot with 4.95m (19.5%) for Traffic Cops, while ITV1's Total Emergency alarmed 2.79m (11.9%). Five had an impressive 3.24m (13.7%) for CSI and on BBC Two, a cannabis-themed Horizon took 2.24m (9.5%).

Earlier, Hollyoaks averaged 1.57m (6.8%) for Channel 4, and on Five, Neighbours had 1.7m (9.4%) and Home & Away had 1.15m (5.4%).

BBC One's average primetime share was 24.4%, a full nine points ahead of ITV1. Channel 4 was third with 9.6% (+1: 0.8%), followed by BBC Two with 9.5% and Five with 7%.

Ratings data supplied by Attentional