O'Leary's Brown interview draws 95,000

Dermot O'Leary's interview with Gordon Brown could only draw 95k (0.4%) to BBC Three between 8pm and 8.30pm last night, early figures suggest.

The channel's hour of political programming was the weak link in its primetime lineup, managing only a third of the audience for the programmes broadcast before and afterwards.

Richard Bacon's interviews with the leaders of the SNP and Plaid Cymru interested just 80k (0.4%) and 47k (0.2%) at 8.30pm and 8.45pm respectively.

From 9pm, a screening of the Keanu Reeves fantasy movie The Lake House averaged 378k (1.7%).

Elsewhere, ITV1's coverage of the Champions League semi between Barcelona and Inter Milan averaged 5.33m (23.8%) between 7.30pm and 10pm.

BBC One's Waterloo Road put in 4.7m (20.8%) in the 8pm hour, then the audience dropped off slightly to 4m (17%) for Crimewatch.

The second episode of B&B reality series Three in a Bed brought in 1.54m (6.8%) to Channel 4, with 211k (0.9%) on timeshift, then Jamie Does... Stockholm claimed 1.89m (8%) and 237k (1.3%).

On BBC Two, The Edible Garden and Cracking Antiques appealed to 1.8m (8.2%) and 1.86m (8.1%) in the 8pm hour, after which the second episode of Monty Halls's Great Hebridean Escape logged 1.94m (8.2%).

Five documentary Lucie Blackman Murder: Crimes That Shook The World interested 807k (3.6%), then the audience grew to 1.92m (8.1%) for a new episode of NCIS. CSI: NY followed at 10pm with 1.14m (6.2%).

ITV1 and BBC One ran a close race for first place in primetime, but the commercial station came out on top overall with an average share of 21.4% to the BBC's 21.1%. BBC Two was third with 8.4%, followed by Channel 4 with 6.4% (+1: 0.9%) and Five with 4.8%.

BARB ratings data supplied by Attentional