Melissa's 'Apprentice' exit seen by 6.4m

The Apprentice drew nearly 6.4m on Wednesday night, according to overnight data.

Melissa's exit from the programme had 6.04m (23.5%) for BBC One and 315k (1.2%) on BBC HD in the 9pm hour, representing a significant viewer loss of around 400k week-on-week.

The Apprentice: You're Fired followed with an impressive 3.33m (15.8%) for BBC Two at 10pm, while The Million Pound Drop Live climbed to 2.07m (11.2%) for Channel 4, adding 221k (2.3%) on +1.

Following a highly-rated hour-long Emmerdale, a new episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot delivered 4.59m (18.4%), and 135k (0.5%) on HD until 10pm.

Waterloo Road picked up 4.38m (18.2%) for BBC One for its series six finale, adding 171k (0.7%) on BBC HD in the 8pm hour, while BBC Two's Masterchef: The Professionals cooked up 3.49m (14.5%), and Channel 4 documentary Buried Alive: The Chilean Mine Rescue interested 1.27m (5.3%).

Grand Designs then pulled in 2.53m (9.8%) at 9pm for the network, attracting a further 341k (1.8%) on timeshift. Wonderland: Mad Cats had 2.11m (8.2%) for BBC Two at the same time.

Channel 5's Cowboy Builders logged 1.47m (6.1%) at 8pm, then imported drama NCIS claimed 944k (6.7%), before Law & Order: Criminal Intent took 817k (4.2%) at 10pm.

Overall, ITV1 pipped BBC One in primetime, with a share of 20.4% (HD: 0.5%) to BBC One's 19.2%. BBC Two followed in third place with 10.8%, Channel 4 had 7.2% (+1: 0.9%), and Channel 5 was last with just 3.9%.

Elsewhere, ITV2 topped the multichannel ratings, as Peter Andre: The Next Chapter fetched 673k (2.6%) at 9pm, before The Only Way is Essex managed a respectable 604k (2.9%) an hour later.

BARB ratings data supplied by Attentional