Viewers taken by Pride in Britain Awards

ITV1's coverage of The Pride of Britain Awards at 9pm last night was something of a surprise hit with 6.7m viewers (30.1%), easily the show's highest audience since at least 2002.

The annual event, hosted by Carol Vorderman, began at 9pm with 5.9m (26%) and steadily rose to a peak of 7.5m (34.9%) at 10pm before dipping to 6.9m (34.6%) in the final 15 minutes.

In both 2006and 2005 the event gained an average audience of 5.6m. Prior to that it was held in March, attracting of 5.4 m (23.2%) in 2004, 5.5m (22.4%) in 2003 and 5.9m (27%) in 2002.

The awards had a sizeable lead over BBC1's new natur al history series The Nature of Britain, which attracted 4.9m (20.9%) over an hour at 9pm. The Alan Titchmarsh-fronted show grew its audience while it was on air from 4.6m (20.5%) at 9pm to 5m (21.7%) in the fin al quarter of an hour.

The commerci al network was al so in a commanding position at 8pm with police drama series The Bill gaining 5.9m (26.3%) over an hour.

Again, BBC1 couldn't put up too much competition. Watchdog at 8pm had 4.5m (20.2%), followed by 4.6m (20.2%) watching Rogue Traders at 8.30pm.

Channel 4's finale of Millionaires' Mission ended quietly with just 700,000 watching the hour long show in the important 9pm slot. A little way ahead of C4 at the time was Five's second part of How to Have Sex after Marriage on 1m (4.3%).

However, neither channel though could come close to BBC2 which gained a strong 2.8m (12.1%) for Heroes.

C4 was in a much stronger position earlier at 8pm with a repeat of Supernanny taking 2.2m (9.9%). Just gaining the upper hand at the same time was BBC2's The Restaurant on 2.4m (10.7%).

Five had a tough time at 8pm with the penultimate edition of My Body Hell bringing in just 614,000 (2.6%), a drop of nearly 400,000 viewers from the previous week.

All hours shares for Wednesday 10 October 2007: ITV1 – 23.9%, BBC1 – 20.6%, BBC2 – 8.6%, C4 – 8%, Five – 4.5%, multichannel – 34.3%.

Peaktime (6pm to 10.30pm) shares: ITV1 – 29.7%, BBC1 – 21%, BBC2 – 9.9%, C4 – 7%, Five – 3.7%, multichannel – 28.7%.

Source: Broadcastnow.co.uk