Tennant's 'Sarah Jane' episode seen by 1.1m

David Tennant's appearance boosted ratings for The Sarah Jane Adventures by around 30% last week, according to early figures.

The Doctor's role in 'The Wedding Of Sarah Jane Smith', which also starred Nigel Havers, managed 1.14m (9.5%) for BBC One at 4.35pm on Friday. The first half of the story had brought in 1.27m (10.9%).

The previous week's episodes had managed 639k (5.8%) and 778k (7.1%) on Thursday and Friday respectively.

> TV Poll: Tennant's appearance on 'Sarah Jane'

Later on Friday, Tonight's investigation into the government's car scrappage scheme pulled in 3.09m (13.7%) for ITV1 at 8pm. The penultimate episode of Benidorm managed a healthy 5.99m (25.9%) in the 9pm hour.

On BBC One, A Question Of Sport had 3.4m (14.5%) for BBC One at 8.30pm, then Have I Got News For You - this week featuring Miranda Hart as guest host - put in 4.79m (20.3%). The Armstrong & Miller Show followed with 3.7m (16.4%).

BBC Two's Mastermind interested 2.5m (11.1%) over half an hour from 8pm, then 2.38m (10.1%) remained for the latest edition of Autumnwatch 2009. Chat show Autumnwatch Unsprung then drew 2.05m (9.1%).

Channel 4's rerun of Jamie's American Road Trip was seen by 920k (4%), then Rude Tube picked up 1.3m (5.6%).

On Five, Brighton Beach Patrol appealed to 886k (3.9%) at 8pm, then an hour later, the fourth season finale of NCIS grabbed 1.18m (5.1%). A repeat of Monday's FlashForward took 709k (3.9%) in the 10pm hour.

Overall, ITV1 led primetime with an average share of 25.7%, a full five points ahead of BBC One. BBC Two was third with 8.5%, followed by Channel 4 with 4.8% (+1: 0.7%) and Five with 3.4%.

BARB ratings data supplied by Attentional