Royal baby: ITV wins ratings battle with more than 7 million viewers

ITV enjoyed a royal baby-related ratings boost on Tuesday night, with an extended early evening news bulletin providing live coverage of the nipper's first photo call and delivering a peak audience of more than 7 million.

The 6.30pm ITV News, extended from 30 to 60 minutes to catch the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge leaving St Mary's hospital with their new arrival, averaged 5.4 million viewers and a 28.6% audience share.

Viewing hit a five-minute peak of 7.5 million just after 7pm. In the half hour from 7pm, ITV averaged 6.95 million viewers and a 35.3% share - the biggest audience on any channel on Tuesday.

BBC1, less fleet of foot with scheduling, switched to a royal baby news special half way through The One Show: Best of Britain (2.6 million/13.6%) at 7.15pm, but this averaged just 3.3 million and 16.7% over the following quarter hour.

Earlier, BBC1 averaged 4.9 million and 29.8% for its 6pm national bulletin, followed by 5.4 million and 30% for its regional news in the second half of the hour.

Last Tuesday ITV's 6.30pm bulletin averaged 3 million and 20%, while from 7pm Emmerdale had 5.6 million and 33.9%.

On Tuesday night Emmerdale was bumped back to 7.30pm by the royal baby coverage, averaging 5.4 million and 26.6% against EastEnders (4.8 million/23.7%).

As usual BBC1 had the better of the 10pm news bulletin ratings battle, averaging 5 million and a 25.5% share against 2.3 million and 12.2% for ITV's News at Ten.

Watching a door proves popular on news channels

The news channels enjoyed a second day of bumper ratings thanks to the royal baby, despite once again having very little new to report until the evening.

BBC News peaked with an audience of a little over 1.4 million and a 7.5% share in the half hour from 6.45pm.

Sky News averaged 854,000 viewers and a 4.7% share in the half hour from 6.30pm, with 797,000 and 4% in the following 30 minutes.

These were the biggest audiences of the day on any channel other than the five main networks.

BBC News had a 3.7% share of viewing across the whole day, compared to an average of 1.1% over the past three months - making it the most watched channel outside the five main networks on Tuesday.

Sky News had a 2.4% all day share (compared to a three month average of 0.7%) - the third popular channel among multichannel services.

Lutheran era ends

BBC1's Luther ended its third series with 4.8 million viewers and a 21.7% audience share from 9pm.

Competition in the 9pm hour included ITV's Hunting the Doorstep Conmen (2.5 million/11.1%), BBC2's The Route Masters (1.8 million/8.2%), Channel 5's CSI (1.7 million/7.6%) and Channel 4's Why Don't You Speak English? (1.2 million/5.2%).

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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