Spartacus: Gods of the Arena gets thumbs up from 482,000 viewers

NEVER KNOWINGLY OVERDRESSED Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, Sky1, 10pm – the channel inherited this prequel to last year's lusty gorefest from the now defunct Bravo, following BSkyB's acquisition of Virgin Media's TV business. The six-parter launched with 482,000 viewers and a 2.9% share, against competition including BBC4's 2012 Olympics comedy Twenty Twelve (450,000/2.2%), and BBC3's EastEnders repeat (723,000/3.6%). E4's Glee was once again the most-watched multichannel show of the day, averaging 1.399 million viewers from 9pm. Multichannel competition in the 9pm slot included the final instalment of Ross Kemp: Extreme World (530,000/2.1%), ITV2's Hell's Kitchen USA (520,000), the last episode of BBC3's How to Live with Women (227,000/0.9%) and new BBC4 science documentary Everything and Nothing (404,000/1.6%). CRIME SPREE Waking the Dead: BBC1, 9pm – the long-running cold case drama's swansong continues, with 6.007 million viewers and a 23.8% audience share for last night's concluding episode of the second out of five two-part stories in the last series. The BBC1 drama proved more popular than ITV1's Law & Order: UK, which drew 3.605 million and 14.3% in the same slot. Another 197,000 (1.1%) watched an hour later on ITV1 +1. Other 9pm competition included the final part of Peter Taylor's latest documentary The Secret War on Terror (1.19 million/4.7%), Channel 4's One Born Every Minute (2.746 million/10.9%, C4 +1 325,000/1.8%) and Channel 5's movie repeat Romeo Must Die (919,000/4.6%). All ratings are Barb overnight figures, including live and same day timeshifted (recorded) viewing, but excluding on demand, +1 or other – unless otherwise stated. Figures for BBC1, ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5 generally include ratings for their HD simulcast services, 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". • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook