Michael Palin sets sail with 7.5m for BBC1

BBC1 travel show Michael Palin's New Europegot a warm send off from the viewers on its maiden voyage with a sizeable 7.5m (31%) watching at 9pm. [ALL]

BBC1 travel show Michael Palin's New Europegot a warm send off from the viewers on its maiden voyage with a sizeable 7.5m (31%) watching at 9pm.

The 60-minute programme, which saw the former Monty Python star travel around eastern Europe, held a largely steady audience throughout but hit a peak of 7.6m (31.1%) at 9.15pm.

The audience for the travel programme was considerably above the channel's slot average for the year so far of 4.9m (20.6%).

Michael Palin's New Europeproved to be a big hit with an upmarket audience with 54% of its audience coming from the ABC1 demographic.

The show didn't appeal to a young audience though as only 9.8% of those watching the programme were aged between 16 and 34.

The previous travelogue programme presented by Palin was Himalayain 2004. That six part series averaged 7.6m (29.5%) with the first instalment taking 8.6m (33.4%) in a similar 9pm slot on 3 October 2004.

Only one winner

Michael Palin's New Europecompletely flattened the competition with even the corporation's nearest rival struggling some way behind.

The penultimate edition of ITV1's Hell's Kitchenin the same 60-minute slot picked up 3.7m (15.3%), 2m viewers below the channel's slot average.

Channel 4's film The Return of the King, the final part in the Lord of the Ringstrilogy, picked up a respectable 3.1m (13.7%) between 6.30pm and 10.05pm.

The epic film peaked with 4.2m (16.3%) at 8.45pm.

Further down the field were Five and BBC2. The Oscar-winning film Erin Brockovichdrew 1.4m (9.4%)to Five while BBC2's This Worlddocumentary The Real Godfathergained 1.1m (4.5%).

A right Royal do

ITV1 managed to comprehensively have the upper hand in the earlier part of peaktime thanks to its popular dramas.

An hour-long Coronation Streetspecial at 7pm picked up 8m (37.4%) with the soap hitting a high of 8.6m (37.8%) in the final 15 minutes.

The commercial network kept its lead at 8pm with the seventh instalment of The Royalon 6m (24.5%).

Last night's episode was the least popular of the show's current run though.

The previous six shows had aired earlier in the year, gaining an average audience of 7.2m (31.5%) with the series launching on 25 March with 8.1m (34.4%).

The final part of BBC2's Crisis on Jimmy's Farmat 8pm took 2.2m (8.7%).

Over on Five, the film The Age of Innocence, which began at 6.05pm, averaged 456,000 (2.2%).

All hours shares for Sunday 16 September 2007: BBC1 - 18.4%, ITV1 - 17.9%, C4 - 9.4%, BBC2 - 7.3%, Five - 4.2%, multichannel - 42.8%.

Peaktime (6pm to 10.30pm) shares: ITV1 - 22.5%, BBC1 - 22.2%, C4 - 12.6%, BBC2 - 6.8%, Five - 3.5%, multichannel - 32.2%.