Series 10 of ITV comedy Benidorm launched to 4.3 million viewers last night.
The new series of Benidorm sees legendary comedy duo Hale & Pace join the cast as undercover detectives investigating Tim Healy’s character Les/Lesley, who returns to the series full time.
The nine-episode series also sees Shane Richie back, reprising his role as lively entertainer Sammy Valentino and John Challis becomes a series regular with his character Monty Staines.
The first instalment last night (Wednesday, February 28) was watched by 4.3 million viewers on ITV, down 400,000 on last year’s series opener.
The show tied with BBC One in the 9PM slot, as Shetland – displaced from its usual Tuesday night slot due to the football – also averaged 4.3 million. This was up 100,000 on last week’s Tuesday episode.
Both shows were eclipsed by the soaps: Coronation Street put in a strong 7.6 million viewers for its first episode of the night while 6 million returned for the second instalment.
6.9 million watched Emmerdale while elsewhere on ITV, Anne Hegerty’s game show Britain’s Brightest Family continued with 3.4 million.
Earlier in the day, The Chase had an audience of 4.3 million viewers at 5PM, only slightly below its all time record high of 4.4 million set in January.
Over on BBC One, Holby City had 3.9 million viewers while The One Show interested 4.7 million. However with the weather, it was the evening regional news that topped the night for the channel, averaging 7.5 million at 6:30PM.