BBC One's grasp on primetime loosened as
Push The Button made a triumphant return to ITV1 last night, early viewing figures indicate.
Hosted by
Ant and Dec, the live gameshow started its second run with an impressive 5.78m (24.8%) between 7.15pm and 8.30pm. Despite not matching last year's
launch, its audience was far greater than last week's
Primeval finale which aired in the same timeslot.
The presence of
Push The Button boosted Paddy McGuinness's
Take Me Out, which rose a hefty 700k week-on-week to log 4.53m (18.9%) from 8.30pm, after which a
Benidorm repeat had 3.12m (14.5%).
Total Wipeout and
The National Lottery: Secret Fortune with
Nick Knowles pulled in 4.38m (19.3%) and 5.89m (24.8%) for BBC One, falling 1m and 600k respectively from last week. At 9pm,
Casualty picked up 5.88m (24.6%), before a repeat of
Come Fly with Me tickled 3.33m (14.8%).
Harry Hill's TV Burp climbed to 5.85m (26.6%) for ITV1 at 7pm, while half-an-hour before the comedy review,
You've Been Framed mustered a respectable 4.79m (22.3%). The network's screening of
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was seen by 1.74m (11.1%) between 3.45pm and 6pm, adding 245k (1.3%) on ITV1 +1.
Meanwhile, an afternoon of Six Nations coverage on BBC One appealed to 3.48m (28.1%) for England v Italy and 4.42m (23.5%) for Scotland v Wales. Elsewhere on the channel's sporting schedule,
Match of the Day scored 4.37m (28.1%) from 10.30pm.
Back in primetime, Channel 4 had a mixed evening, as films
League of the Extraordinary Gentleman and
AVP: Alien vs Predator only fetched 1.33m (5.8%) and 801k (5.2%) at 7pm and 10.30pm as well as a further 262k (1.1%) and 187k (2.1%) on +1. However,
The Million Pound Drop Live continued to perform well with 2.2m (9.5%), as well as 240k (1.2%) on timeshift.
Over on BBC Two,
Dad's Army and
Blackadder Rides Again amused 2.49m (10.8%) and 1.84m (7.7%) from 7.30pm, then 1.11m (4.7%) and 1.32m (6.3%) watched
Faulks on Fiction and
The Tudors.
CSI: NY drew Channel 5's best audience of its US drama marathon with 1.94m (8.9%) at 9.45pm. Prior to that,
CSI: Miami grabbed 1.02m (4.3%).
Overall, BBC One edged primetime with 21.8% against ITV1's 19.8% (+1: 0.6%). Channel 4 pipped BBC Two to third place with 6.8% (+1: 1%) to 7.2%, and Channel 5 held 5.2%.
Elsewhere, ITV3 averaged a strong 3.7% in primetime, after
Rosemary & Thyme and
Midsomer Murders took multichannel-topping audiences of 973k (4.4%) and 720k (3%).
BARB ratings data supplied by Attentional 
