BBC1’s Poldark adaptation starring Aidan Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson began with nearly 7 million viewers, nearly twice the number who watched ITV rival Mr Selfridge.
Poldark, a remake of the 1970s classic, started with 6.9 million viewers, a 29% share from 9pm on Sunday.
It helped that it followed the final episode of the fourth series of Call the Midwife, which ended with 8.7 million viewers, a 32.8% share.
Poldark easily had the better of ITV’s department store drama Mr Selfridge, starring Jeremy Piven and Zoe Wanamaker, which had 3.7 million viewers, a 13.5% share.
Poldark also topped BBC1’s JK Rowling adaptation A Casual Vacancy, which it replaced in the Sunday night slot.
A Casual Vacancy began with 6.6 million viewers last month, ending its three-part run with 4.6 million.
But Channel 4’s big Sunday night drama Indian Summers suffered its fourth successive slide in audience to 1.3 million, a 4.3% share.
Indian Summers, already recommissioned for a second series, launched with 2.9 million (13.4%) last month before slipping to 2.2 million for its second episode and 1.8 million last week.
It found itself up against BBC2’s charity fund raiser, Let’s Play Darts for Comic Relief, which had 2.5 million viewers, a 10.5% share from 9pm.
The darts, like Poldark, benefited from what was on before it, following the evergreen (but not in that sense) Top Gear, watched by 5.1 million viewers (19.4%) from 8pm.
