Cathryn Dresser's exit at the competition's quarter-final stage drew 4.75m (19.4%) and peaked with well over 5m, edging closer to BBC One's Holby City and beating all other programming in the 8pm ratings battle.
BBC Two's Bake Off probably aided Ian Hislop's new programme Stiff Upper Lip: An Emotional History of Britain - the documentary series launched with 2.27m (9.8%) at 9pm.
However, the BBC suffered losses elsewhere in its schedule, as BBC One's The Paradise dipped to 4.85m (20.7%) and BBC Three sitcom Cuckoo also fell to 789k (4.3%) and lost its place as multichannel leader.
Manchester United's match against Romanian team CFR Cluj dominated ITV's evening schedule, with coverage scoring an average of 3.7m (15.7%) between 7.30pm and 10pm.
Meanwhile on Channel 4, Double Your House logged 1.22m (5%) at 8pm (+1: 278k/1.5%) and Hotel GB interested 1.37m (5.8%) at 9pm (+1: 244k/1.5%).
Elsewhere, Person of Interest anchored Channel 5's night with 1.11m (4.7%) and 135k (0.8%) on +1, soaring around 200k week-on-week.
Overall, BBC One managed another fairly easy Tuesday primetime victory against ITV with 23% versus 16.2% (+1: 0.5%). BBC Two commanded third position with 10.4%, over double Channel 4's 5% (+1: 0.9%) and nearly triple Channel 5's 3.6% (+1: 0.4%).
