London: Celebrity Big Brother is paying ratings dividends for Channel 5, with the broadcaster beating both Channel 4 and ITV1 in peak time on Sunday night.
Channel 5 also beat Channel 4 in peak time on Friday and Saturday nights. However, normal service was resumed on Monday night, with Channel 5 back in its usual fifth place among the five terrestrial networks.
Between 7 and 10.30pm on Sunday, Channel 5 averaged 2.2 million viewers and a 10.1 per cent audience share, compared with 1.78 million (8.1 per cent) for ITV1 and 1.27 million (5.8 per cent) for Channel 4.
The figures exclude +1 ratings for ITV1 and Channel 4.
On Sunday evening Channel 5 aired a repeat of the film The Da Vinci Code (2.2 million), followed by Celebrity Big Brother (2.1 million) in its regular 10pm slot.
They were up against a repeat of Joanna Lumley's Nile (1.7 million) at 7pm, followed at 8pm by a new ITV1 hour-long David Jason documentary David Jason's Greatest Escapes (2.2 million), then the finale of magic series Penn Teller: Fool Us (2.1 million). To be fair to Channel 4, its line-up was less obviously designed to maximise ratings, with World Championship athletics at 7.05pm (700,000), followed by the eye-opening Holiday Hijack at 8pm (900,000) and then the Hollywood film Rush Hour 3 at 9pm (1.8 million).
With the start of new ITV1 gameshow Red or Black and Jonathan Ross next weekend it remains to be seen if Celebrity Big Brother will make such an impact on ITV1 again.