'Dancing on Ice' final peaks at 9.8 million viewers

The peak audience of 9.8 million for the show, which saw Attwater beat children’s TV presenter Laura Hamilton and Chloe Madeley, daughter of ‘Richard & Judy’, was down from a peak of 10 million for last year’s final.

The show averaged 8.78 million between 7.45pm and 10pm on ITV1 and ITV1 HD, a 33.3% share, and comparable to last year’s audience of 8.8 million.

A further 188,300 watched the programme on the time-shifted channel ITV1 +1.

According to figures from ITV, the average audience for ‘Dancing on Ice’ this series was 9 million, up from 8.8 million last year. The 2010 series was won by former ‘Emmerdale’ actress Hayley Tamaddon.

Elsewhere, BBC One’s ‘Waking the Dead’ police drama had an average audience of 5.23 million between 9pm and 10pm across the standard and high definition channels, a 19.2% share of the audience.

‘Wonders of the Universe’, the multi award-winning show presented by former D:Ream keyboardist Professor Brian Cox, had an audience of 2.76 million on BBC Two and BBC HD last night, a 10.1% share.

On Saturday evening the most watched show in the crucial 9pm slot was ‘Casualty’ which had an audience of 5.42 million between 9pm and 9.45pm on BBC One and BBC One HD, a 24.1% share of the available audience.

The Bond film ‘Quantum of Solace’ had an average audience of 4.73 million between 9pm and 11pm on Saturday night, a 23.3% share of the audience.

‘Benidorm’, ITV’s comedy set in the southern Spanish resort, was the most watched show at 9pm on Friday evening with an audience of 6.03 million on ITV1 and ITV1 HD, a 25.4% share of the audience. A further 321,900 watched the show on ITV1 +1.

On BBC One and BBC One HD ‘New Tricks’, the long-running police drama, had an audience of 3.28 million, a 13.8% share, between 9pm and 10pm.

‘This is Britain’, a programme on censuses presented by Andrew Marr, had an average audience of 1.83 million on BBC Two and BBC HD, a 7.7% share of the audience.