'CSI' and 'Trace' tie-in wins for Five

Tie-in episodes of CSI and Without a Trace drew viewers to Five and won Five US its biggest ever audience last night.

The double bill saw both characters and story cross over between the two shows. Five aired CSI from 9-10pm followed by Trace, normally on Channel 4 in the UK, on Five US.

Both will screen on Channel 4 at a later date under a special agreement for the double bill which previously won good audiences for CBS in the US.

CSI was second only to BBC One in its slot with a 3.8m audience or 16% share. Some 2.25m (13.9%) followed instructions to switch to Five US for the continuing story.

It easily beat the channel's previous audience high of 615,000 viewers for an episode of Dirt in July.

Elsewhere in multichannel television, the first night for a rebranded BBC Three, with several new series, struggled to draw viewers.

Its share of multichannel homes between 7pm and midnight was 1.76% compared to last year's average for the night of 2.3%, or a 3.7% average for Tuesdays so far this year.

The BBC today pointed out its relative success with the channel's 16-34 target. Last night its share of that audience was 3.6%, up from a 3.3% average in 2007, higher than other digital-only stations except E4.

BBC Three's headline newcomer, the Lily Allen and Friends chatshow, took 255,000 (1.95%) at 10.30pm. Last year's average for the slot was 464,000 (3.80%).

Other newcomers Find Me the Face and Phoo Action were also down on their slots' usual performance, though two episodes of Real Hustle Does Vegas from 7pm attracted 322,000 (1.73%) and 339,000 (1.66%) viewers respectively. Last year the hour took 232,000 (1.40%) on average.