Peter Kay has the pop factor

Channel 4's comedy featuring Peter Kay was a monster hit last night at 8pm with 5.5m viewers (20.2%) watching the first part, the channel's highest audience so far this year.

The initial 75-minute show, Peter Kay's Britain's Got the Pop Factor and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice, managed to hit a high of 6m (22.3%) at 8.15pm. The programme was up on the channel's slot average for the year so far of 1.6m (6.4%) by a huge 244%.

The show, which lampooned the current spate of reality talent shows, picked up a further 545,000 an hour later on C4+1 giving the show a total audience of just over 6m

The comedy then pulled in another 3m (15.1%) at 10.15pm for the concluding 45-minutes.

Inbetween, at 9.15pm, Peter Kay also featured in One Hundred and Eighty: The Tour Documentary, which gained 2.8m (10.5%).

Grand Designs had previously been the channel's highest audience so far this year with a total audience (including C4+1) of 5.8m (26.2%). The finale of Big Brother last month averaged 4.9m (23.7%).

The last time the terrestrial channel had a larger audience than Peter Kay's show was on 13 May last year for Big Brother with 6.6m.

The Peter Kay show was also a sizeable hit with both upmarket and younger viewers. ABC1 viewers made up 46.9% of the audience for the whole show while viewers in the 16-34 age range accounted for 39.6%.

The C4 show managed to gain the edge over ITV1 and its nearest competitors at the time. The commercial network was no slouch though with a new run of Heartbeat bringing in 5.3m (19.4%) over an hour at 8pm.

BBC2's Charley Boorman: Ireland to Sydney by Any Means continued its journey with 2m (7.2%). Five's Deadliest Outback Predators was some way off the pace with 579,000 (2%).

While C4 was benefitting from bumper ratings it still couldn't come close to BBC1's results show of Strictly Come Dancing which pulled in 7.4m (26.5%).

A Touch of Frost

While C4 had plenty to celebrate last night BBC1 and ITV1 also made a significant impact with viewers.

The honours for the most popular show of the day went to ITV1 with the start of a new series of A Touch of Frost which pulled in a significant 7.6m (33.3%) over two hours from 9pm. The show peaked with 7.9m (31.5%) at 9.45pm and never dipped below 7m for the entire two hours.

The detective series was significantly up on the channel's slot average for the year so far of 5.8m (23.5%).

Earlier at 7.15pm, BBC1's Antiques Roadshow continued on its strong ratings run with the show at 7.15pm bringing in 6.9m (28.8%).

BBC1 also put in a solid performance at 9pm with its new documentary series Stephen Fry in America on 5.6m (21.8%), up by 600,000 on the channel's slot average of 5m (20.3%) for the year so far.

All hours shares for Sunday 12 October 2008: ITV1 – 19.1%, BBC1 – 19.0%, C4 – 10.0% (C4+1 -1.0%), BBC2 – 7.5%, Five – 4.8%, multichannel – 38.5%.

Peaktime (6pm to 10.30pm) shares: BBC1 – 24.6%, ITV1 – 22.1%, C4 – 13.0% (C4+1 – 1.2%), BBC2 – 6.7%, Five – 4.9%, multichannel – 27.5%.

Source: BroadcastNow