Overnight Ratings

Unofficial overnight viewing figures for yesterday show that Saturday's night's broadcast of The Age of Steel was seen by an average audience of 6.9 million viewers, with an audience share of 35.5%. This places it first in its timeslot and second for the day, behind this year's Eurovision Song Contest (8.2m, 37.3%). Doctor Who was 1.6m ahead of the day's third-placed programme The National Lottery Jet Set (5.3m, 26.7%) and 1.8m ahead of its ITV1 competition, The Prince's Trust 30th Birthday Live (5.1m, 23.4%). Viewing figures in the earlier this week's earlier timeslot began at 5.88m, but almost two million viewers joined the programme during the episode, which peaked at 7.73m at around 7.15pm, before the usual dramatic drop in BBC One's figures when Doctor Who finished (down to about 5m). On the same weekend last year, and also moved to an earlier timeslot by the annual Eurovision, The Empty Child's overnights fell to 6.6m (34.9%) from the 7.5m (42.7%) achieved by Father's Day, with 2005's Eurovision at 7.9m (38.8%), so The Age of Steel continues Series Two's consistent year-on-year increase on the ratings for Series One.

Also, on BBC Three, the sixth instalment of Doctor Who Confidential was watched by 591,700 viewers (3.9% audience share). (Thanks to 'Shaun Lyon,' Andy Parish)