Prisoners' Wives captures 4.9m viewers

BBC1's new drama Prisoners' Wives – a bit like Footballers' Wives, but set in prison – just failed to top the 5 million mark with its first episode on Tuesday night. The new drama, starring Polly Walker and Iain Glen, began with 4.9 million viewers, a 20.4% share of the audience between 9pm and 10pm. But it was more than twice the 2.4 million who saw ITV1's weight-loss show The Biggest Loser, which could only manage a slim 2.4 million (including ITV1 +1), a 10.1% share. The Biggest Loser was beaten by the last of Channel 4's three-part big family documentary hit, 15 Kids and Counting, which finished with 2.8 million viewers (11.4%). Concordia doc proves popular on Channel 4 Channel 4's fast turnaround documentary Terror at Sea: the Sinking of the Concordia , was the channel's most popular programme of the day with 3.2 million viewers (13.3%) between 8pm and 9pm. It beat the first of new BBC2 series Alex Polizzi: the Fixer, in which the Forte hotel chain entrepreneur tried to help other family businesses. It started with 2.3 million viewers, a 9.4% share, including 102,000 on BBC HD. Why aye viewers MTV's take on the structured reality genre, Geordie Shore – like Jersey Shore but in Newcastle (there's a pattern developing here) returned for its second series with 278,000 viewers, a 1.5% share, between 10pm and 11pm. All ratings are Barb overnight figures, including live, +1 (except for BBC and some other channels including Sky1) and same day timeshifted (recorded) viewing, but excluding on demand, 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 .