Real-life stalker drama U Be Dead was watched by more than 5 million viewers on ITV1 and ITV1 HD, narrowly beating the final part of BBC1's natural history series Secret Britain last night, Sunday 5 September.
U Be Dead, starring David Morrissey and Tara FitzGerald, had 5.234 million viewers, a 23.8% share of the audience between 9pm and 11pm. Of these 206,000 saw it on ITV1 HD.
Secret Britain, in which Julia Bradbury and Matt Baker took viewers on a trip around some of the country's less well-known beauty spots, was watched by 5.242 million viewers, a 21% share, between 9pm and 10pm, on BBC1 and BBC HD. Secret Britain attracted 115,000 viewers (0.5%) on BBC HD.
The 9pm competition included the latest installment in BBC2's Grumpy ... series, Grumpy Old Schooldays, which had 1.539 million viewers, a 6.2% share.
It lost out to Channel 4's Ultimate Big Brother, which had 2.315 million viewers, 9.3% of the audience, between 9pm and 10pm, with another 239,000 viewers tuning in on Channel 4+1.
Channel 5's Will Smith terrestrial movie premiere, The Pursuit of Happyness, averaged 1.498 million viewers, a 6.1% share, between 8pm and 10.20pm.
Five main terrestrial analogue networks
BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4, Channel Five (available in all UK homes with TV, except Channel 5, which reaches about 95%)
BBC1
7pm: Countryfile – 4.870 million/20.8%, BBC HD 131,000/0.6%
BBC2
8pm: Mountain Gorilla – 1.668 million/6.8%, BBC HD 92,000/0.4%
ITV1/ITV1 HD
7pm: Coronation Street – 7.092 million/30.2%
Channel 4
6.20pm: Transformers (terrestrial premiere) - 3.005 million/13.1%
Channel 5
7.15pm: Cricket on Five – 489,000/2.1%
Freeview/digital terrestrial TV free-to-air networks
Available in 23.4m UK homes – 91.4% of total – as of 31/12/09. Source: Ofcom digital progress report, Q4 2009
BBC4
8.30pm: The Yorkshire Dales on Film – 268,000/1.1%
Cable and satellite pay-TV networks
Available in 12.4m UK homes – 48.2% of total – as of 31/12/09. Source: Ofcom digital progress report, Q4 2009
Sky1
6pm: The Simpsons – 661,000/3.8%
6.30pm: The Middle – 579,000/2.9%
7pm: Must Be The Music – 368,000/1.6%
All ratings are Barb overnight figures, including live and same day timeshifted (recorded) viewing, but excluding on demand, HD, +1 or other – unless otherwise stated
• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.
• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".