Ramsay's Best Restaurants goes down a treat with 1.5m viewers

Gordon Ramsay's new Channel 4 series Ramsay's Best Restaurants opened with just over 1.5 million viewers, beaten by BBC2's Battle of Britain drama documentary, First Light last night, Tuesday 14 September.

Ramsay's Best Restaurant, the first of a 12-part quest to find the top eaterie in Britain, had 1.562 million viewers, a 6.7% share, with another 285,000 viewers on Channel 4+1.

First Light averaged 2.607 million viewers, an 11.5% share, between 9pm and 10.20pm. Another 8,000 (0.1%) watched on BBC HD.

The second part of ITV1's reality show, 71 Degrees North, had 2.969 million viewers, a 12.7% share, of whom 113,000 were watching on ITV1 HD.

ITV's Arctic Circle show was beaten by BBC1's celebrity timeshift show, The Young Ones, which began with 3.76 million, 16.1% of the audience. The Young Ones was watched by another 42,000 viewers on BBC HD.

Five main terrestrial analogue networks

BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4, Channel 5 (available in all UK homes with TV, except Channel 5, which reaches about 95%)

BBC1

8pm: Holby City - 5.287 million/22.4%

BBC2

8pm: Great British Bake-Off - 2.738 million/11.6%

ITV1/ITV1 HD

8pm: New Who Wants to be a Millionaire? - 3.330 million/14.1%

Channel 4

10pm: This Is England '86 - 1.878 million/10.8%, C4+1 328,000/3.7%

Channel 5

8pm: Nature Shock: Deadly Rat Invasion - 1.383 million/5.9%

Freeview/digital terrestrial TV free-to-air networks

Available in 23.4m UK homes – 91.4% of total – as of 31/12/09. Source: Ofcom digital progress report, Q4 2009

BBC3

9pm: Don't Tell the Bride - 898,000/3.9%

BBC4

8pm: Wellington Bomber - 752,000/3.2%

All ratings are Barb overnight figures, including live and same day timeshifted (recorded) viewing, but excluding on demand, HD, +1 or other – unless otherwise stated

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