New drama Inside Men premiered to more than 4.5m on BBC One last night, according to overnight data.
The Steven Mackintosh show took 4.54m (19.9%) in the 9pm hour, comfortably beating its competition.
In the same timeslot, ITV1's Eternal Law could only muster 2.72m (11.9%), a series low. A further 211k (1.2%) watched on timeshift.
Elsewhere on BBC One, Motorway Cops averaged 3.78m (15.5%) from 8pm.
Channel 4's Location, Location, Location took 2.06m (8.4%) in the 8pm hour (+1: 393k/1.7%). It was followed by Restoration Man, which had 2.06m (9%) and 274k (1.6%) on +1.
Raymond Blanc: The Very Hungry Frenchman was seen by 1.66m (6.8%) on BBC Two, with Putin, Russia and the West averaging 801k (3.5%) afterwards.
On Channel 5, 8pm's World's Scariest Near Misses had 1.15m (4.7%) and 9pm's Winter Road Rescue grabbed 1.56m (6.9%).
Overall, BBC One edged the night with 21.7% against ITV1's 21.2% (+1: 0.7%). Channel 4 finished with 6.9% (+1: 1.1%) beating BBC Two's 5.4% and Channel 5's 4.4%.
On the multichannels, Sky1's Mad Dogs took 660k (2.9%) from 9pm. A repeat of The Big Bang Theory also impressed, attracting 657k (2.8%) and 176k (0.8%) on timeshift.
