Sky's Westworld traps 500k

The 10-part acquisition, based on Michael Crichton’s 1973 film, was comfortably ahead of The Night Of which landed on 1 September with 290,000 (0.2%) and Billions which got underway in May in front of 181,000 (0.9%).

The sixth series of Game of Thrones launched in April with 2.2m viewers.

Westworld’s feature-length opening episode peaked with 575,000 (3%) in its opening minutes and skewed slightly older than average, with 52% of the audience aged between 35 and 54, compared to the 39% average.

It demolished the channel’s slot average of 52,000 (0.3%) for the last 12 months.

Wild Pictures’ refugee documentary struggled for ITV – informing an audience well below the 2.8m (13.4%) slot average.

It was beaten by Channel 5’s Eamonn and Ruth: How The Half Lives which transported 1.2m (6.1%) and BBC2’s Great Continental Railway Journeys. The doc embarked on a journey from Tangier to Marrakesh with 2m (10.2%). 

BBC1 won the slot with Ambulance. The second episode of Dragonfly’s three-part doc series built on its debut audience of 3.7m (19%) to inform 4.3m (22%).

The penultimate episode of The Forge’s three-part sexual abuse drama National Treasure continued with 2.2m (11.3%), in line with last week’s episode.

Earlier in the evening, the third series of Daisybeck Productions’ countryside ob doc beat the channel’s 1.1m (5.5%) slot average, according to Barb data provided by overnights.tv. It was narrowly ahead of the 1.4m (6.7%) who watched the previus series opener in April.