BBC One's 'Inside Men' begins with 4.5m

New drama Inside Men premiered to more than 4.5m on BBC One last night, according to overnight data.

The Steven Mackintosh show took 4.54m (19.9%) in the 9pm hour, comfortably beating its competition.

In the same timeslot, ITV1's Eternal Law could only muster 2.72m (11.9%), a series low. A further 211k (1.2%) watched on timeshift.

Elsewhere on BBC One, Motorway Cops averaged 3.78m (15.5%) from 8pm.

Channel 4's Location, Location, Location took 2.06m (8.4%) in the 8pm hour (+1: 393k/1.7%). It was followed by Restoration Man, which had 2.06m (9%) and 274k (1.6%) on +1.

Raymond Blanc: The Very Hungry Frenchman was seen by 1.66m (6.8%) on BBC Two, with Putin, Russia and the West averaging 801k (3.5%) afterwards.

On Channel 5, 8pm's World's Scariest Near Misses had 1.15m (4.7%) and 9pm's Winter Road Rescue grabbed 1.56m (6.9%).

Overall, BBC One edged the night with 21.7% against ITV1's 21.2% (+1: 0.7%). Channel 4 finished with 6.9% (+1: 1.1%) beating BBC Two's 5.4% and Channel 5's 4.4%.

On the multichannels, Sky1's Mad Dogs took 660k (2.9%) from 9pm. A repeat of The Big Bang Theory also impressed, attracting 657k (2.8%) and 176k (0.8%) on timeshift.

BARB ratings data supplied by Attentional