The Apprentice fires back with nearly 7m viewers

The Apprentice returned to BBC1 with nearly 7 million viewers, proving more popular than ITV1's Midsomer Murders last night, Wednesday 6 October. Yesterday's first episode of the sixth series attracted 6.549 million viewers and a 25.8% share on BBC1 from 9pm, with another 358,000 viewers, 1.4% of the audience, watching on the BBC's high definition channel. The Apprentice's total audience of 6.907 million viewers was the second biggest for a series opener to date, but down on the 8.1 million who watched the beginning of the fifth series in March 2009 . The previous year, 6.7 million watched the start of the fourth series. Last night's show won its 9pm slot, beating Midsomer Murders on ITV1/ITV1 HD, which averaged 5.675 million viewers and a 23.2% share, of whom 159,000 were watching in high definition. Elsewhere at 9pm, the fourth in the new series of Grand Designs on Channel 4 drew 2.392 million viewers and a 9.4% share, with another 261,000 viewers on Channel 4 +1. The second part of BBC2 documentary Secret Iraq attracted 869,000 viewers and a 3.4% share, also between 9pm and 10pm. Channel 5's NCIS repeat drew 930,000 viewers and 3.4%. 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: Waterloo Road – 4.192 million/17.7%, BBC HD – 150,000 BBC2 8pm: Masterchef: The Professionals – 2.850 million/12.1%, BBC HD – 18,000 ITV1/ITV1 HD 7pm: Emmerdale – 7.726 million/36.3% Channel 4 8pm: Food: What Goes In Your Basket? – 1.608 million/6.8%, C4+1 205,000/0.8% Channel 5 8pm: Cowboy Builders – 1.696 million/7.2% 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 ITV2 9pm: Peter Andre: the Next Chapter (new series) - 849,000/3.4% E4 9pm: Ugly Betty – 540,000/2.1% More4 9pm: World War II – The Unseen Films – 221,000/1.1% BBC4 10pm: Mad Men – 302,000/1.6%, BBC HD 45,000/0.2% 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 • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. • If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".