3.5m tune in for Ulrika's BB win

Published Sunday, Jan 25 2009, 19:26 GMT | By Neil Wilkes

The sixth series of Celebrity Big Brother bowed out on Friday with the lowest ever audience for a celebrity finale.

The first half of the final, broadcast over an hour from 8.30pm, managed 2.99m (12.6%). The second, which included news of Ulrika Jonsson's victory, had 3.48m (17.9%). The audience peaked with 4.11m (19.8%) at 10.15pm.

The last celebrity finale, won by Shilpa Shetty in 2007, drew 5.8m (25%).

Ratings for this year's celebrity series have been generally lower than in previous years, with an average viewership of 3m across three weeks.

Channel 4's average share in primetime on Friday was 10.2%, up two points week on week.

Two episodes of Coronation Street pulled in 9.32m (41.9%) and 8.28m (34.7%) at 7.30pm and 8.30pm respectively. EastEnders had 8.43m (36.8%) for BBC One and 501k (2.7%) for BBC Three, while Emmerdale logged 7.09m (33.8%) for ITV1.

Hollyoaks atrracted 1.67m (8.2%) to Channel 4 and on Five, Neighbours had 1.53m (9.5%) and Home & Away had 1.12m (5.9%).

Once again, Fiver's first-look Home & Away outrated E4's Hollyoaks, with 639k (3.6%) to 605k (3.3%) respectively.

BBC Two's Natural World - this week looking at the Northward migration of grizzly bears - appealed to 2.32m (10%) from 8pm and on Five, Police Interceptors picked up 1.11m (4.8%).

Around The World In 80 Faiths gathered 1.3m (5.7%) for BBC Two at 9pm and on Five, a new NCIS logged 2.19m (9.6%). Numb3rs followed with 980k (5%).

A new episode of Trial & Retribution helped ITV1 win the 9pm hour with an average of 5.3m (23.2%). QI delivered 3.92m (16.7%) to BBC One in the first half of the hour, then a repeat of The Vicar Of Dibley averaged 3.52m (15.9%).

The return of Friday Night With Jonathan Ross after the presenter's three-month BBC suspension brought in a massive 4.74m (30%) to BBC One from 10.35pm.

ITV1 maintained its lead in primetime with an average share of 24.7% to BBC One's 20.8%. After Channel 4, BBC Two was fourth with 7.3%, while Five trailed on 5.3%.

Ratings data supplied by Attentional