'Talent' appeals to 12.2 million

Britain's Got Talent ascended the ratings again on Saturday night, according to early figures.

The third episode of the third series, which featured contributions from now-axed fourth judge Kelly Brook, drew an average of 12.24m (52.3%) in the 8pm hour for ITV1. The figure is up around 400k on last week's episode, which itself was up 1.3m on the premiere.

This week's episode peaked with 13.16m (54.4%) at 8.40pm.

After Talent, the latest episode of Hell's Kitchen appealed to 4.67m (20.9%), then a screening of GoldenEye put in 2.25m (13.2%). Earlier, Primeval had brought in 4.87m (25.6%) for the channel.

Overall, ITV1 had a confident 29% share throughout primetime.

On BBC One, Robin Hood delivered 3.63m (22.1%) from 6.15pm, then the second episode of John Barrowman's Tonight's The Night grew the audience to 3.97m (20.9%). The National Lottery: 1 vs 100 and ensuing Lottery draw managed 3.45m (15%) and 4.04m (17.1%) respectively. Casualty notched up the channel's highest audience of the day, with 5.05m (21.8%) tuning in from 8.50pm.

Channel 4's Time Team: Secrets of a Tudor Mansion had 846k (3.6%) in the 8pm hour, just outdoing the 830k (3.6%) for Restoration Revisited on BBC Two.

Have I Got A Bit More News For You appealed to 2.01m (8.8%) for BBC Two at 9pm, while on Channel 4, a screening of My Best Friend's Wedding was seen by 1.34m (6.6%).

Five's NCIS double bill claimed audiences of 789k (3.6%) and 1.15m (4.9%) respectively from 7.45pm, then a new episode of CSI: NY averaged 2.27m (11.2%). Law & Order closed off prime for Five with 1.12m (7.7%).

BBC One was a distant second place in primetime with an average audience share of 19.4%. BBC Two was third with 6.2%, followed by Channel 4 with 5.4% (+1: 0.7%) and Five with 6%.

Spinoff programme Britain's Got More Talent topped the multichannel ratings for the day, taking 1.39m (6.8%) for ITV2 in the 9pm hour.

Ratings data supplied by Attentional