Jimmy Savile's 'Panorama' investigation seen by 5.1m

The BBC's investigation into Jimmy Savile was three times more popular than ITV's Exposure, early overnight data indicates.

'What the BBC Knew', an hour-long broadcast into the corporation's handling of the Savile revelations, gave Panorama its best audience of the year.



Some 5.09 million, a 38.9% share, chose to stay up after the BBC News to watch the programme which aired between 10.35pm and 11.40pm - way above than the 1.7m figure for ITV's original scoop.

Earlier on the channel, New Tricks posted a solid 7.42m (30.4%) in the 9pm hour, prior to which an unadvertised Fake Britain had 3.58m (14.6%) in Panorama's normal pre-watershed slot of 8.30pm.

University Challenge hit a series high of 3.23m (13.2%) for BBC Two at 8pm, perhaps benefiting from the departure of Paul O'Grady from ITV's schedule.



Meanwhile, Monroe's troubles deepened as the ITV medical drama sunk to a new series low of 2.72m (11.2%) at 9pm (+1: 189k/1.1%).

999: What's Your Emergency continued with a decent 2.14m (8.8%) for Channel 4 (+1: 367k/2%) at the same time, and 1.03m (5.1%) watched Channel 5's screening of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

Overall, BBC One topped primetime with 24.6%, beating ITV1's 20.4% (+1: 0.7%). BBC Two claimed third place with 8.3%, ahead of Channel 4's 5.3% (+1: 0.9%), and Channel 5's 4.2% (+1: 0.2%).



Made in Chelsea (403k/2.2%) overtook Switch (383k/2.1%) in 10pm's E4 versus ITV2 ratings battle, though both ended up losing viewers.

Only Connect, however, soared to a new series high of 995k (4.1%) for BBC Four, while the UK premiere of US action drama Arrow dazzled 888k (3.6%) for Sky1.

BARB ratings data supplied by Attentional