A combination of Top Gear, Dragons' Den and the Winter Olympics helped BBC2 put ITV in the shade once again on Sunday, the last day of the Sochi Games.
Home to nearly all of the BBC's Winter Olympics coverage, it was the third weekend in a row that BBC2 has trumped ITV's all-day share of the audience, with 12.9% of all viewing on Sunday ahead of ITV's 12.1%.
BBC2 was boosted by its regular Sunday night offerings Top Gear, watched by 5.6 million viewers (20.2%) between 8pm and 9pm, and Dragons' Den, with 3.1 million viewers, 13.1% of the audience, between 9pm and 10pm.
Top Gear beat ITV's All Star Family Fortunes, watched by 4.7 million viewers (17.7%) between 7.45pm and 8.30pm, and the Dancing on Ice Skate Off semi-final, with 4.5 million viewers, a 15.9% share.
BBC1 drama The Musketeers stayed ahead of ITV's Mr Selfridge, but only just, with 4.8 million viewers (20.4%) ahead of its commercial rival's 4.7 million (20%) between 9pm and 10pm.
Channel 4's most popular programme of the night was terrestrial movie premiere Bridesmaids, with 2.3 million (12%) between 9pm and 11.25pm.
Elsewhere, The Only Way is Essex returned to ITV2 but was unable to break the million barrier, with 968,000 viewers (5.6%) – nearly double the channel's slot average.
Although a slightly disappointing start ratings-wise by TOWIE's standards, it was still the most watched non-sports programme in multichannel on Sunday.
Takeaway taken out by not so little Voice
Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway returned to ITV for a new seven-part run, but was no match for BBC1's rejuvenated The Voice on Saturday night.
The ITV show had 6.5 million viewers (27.8%) between 7pm and 8.20pm, behind the 7.3 million (31.2%) who watched the last week of blind auditions on The Voice.
The Voice traditionally takes a dip with the end of the blind auditions round, so Ant and Dec will be clearing their throat for a big push next week.
Slip sliding away
A peak of 3.2 million viewers saw the British men's curling team win silver at the Winter Olympics on BBC1 on Friday.
BBC1, making one of its rare incursions into the Sochi games (when public interest peaks), had an average of 2.6 million viewers (28.3%) for its Olympics coverage between 1.45pm and 4.30pm on Friday.
Later, ITV's new drama Edge Of Heaven could only manage 2.7 million viewers (12.5%) between 9pm and 10pm on Friday.
It lost out to BBC1's coverage of Wales' 26-3 win over France in the Six Nations rugby union, watched by 4.6 million viewers between 8pm and 10pm.
All ratings are Barb overnight figures, including live, +1 (except for BBC channels) and same day timeshifted (recorded) viewing, but excluding on demand, or other – unless otherwise stated. Figures for BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 generally include ratings for their HD simulcast services, unless otherwise stated
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