Latest 'Strictly' seen by 7.6 million

Last night's edition of Strictly Come Dancing pulled in 7.59m (34%) for BBC One between 8.30pm and 10pm, according to early figures.

The ratings for the episode are down over 600k on last week's opener, which had 8.44m (35.7%) in the same slot.

ITV1's A Dangerous Game: Tonight pulled in 2.53m (12.3%) between 8pm and 8.30pm, then after Corrie, Rebus had 2.98m (13.4%) in the 9pm hour.

Mastermind brought in 2.21m (10.7%) to BBC One at 8pm, then 1.63m (7.3%) remained for Gardeners' World in the second half of the hour. A new episode of The Tudors followed with 1.48m (6.6%).

Channel 4's culinary double of Jamie At Home and The Big Food Fight had audiences of 835k (4.1%) and 533k (2.4%) respectively in the 8pm hour, then Derren Brown: How To Be A Psychic Spy pulled in 1.82m (8.2%). The second episode of Peep Show logged 1.23m (6.9%) at 10pm.

Five's Brighton Beach Patrol took 923k (4.3%) at 8pm, then a rerun of NCIS appealed to 1.03m (4.6%). A double-bill of Law & Order: Criminal Intent picked up 1.15m (6.8%) and 853k (8.2%) from 10pm.

Overall, BBC One was a confident leader of primetime with an average audience share of 29.3% to ITV1's 19.8%. BBC Two was third with 7.6%, followed by Channel 4 with 5.2% (+1: 0.9%) and Five with 4.3%.

The top multichannel performer was ITV2's screening of Die Another Day, which put in 606k (3.8%) from 9pm. Repeats of last weekend's The X Factor and The Xtra Factor were also popular for the channel, with audiences of 549k (3.2%) and 441k (2.2%) from 6.45pm.

BARB ratings data supplied by Attentional