Victoria trumps return of Poldark in Sunday night TV viewing figures

Royal ITV drama Victoria has trumped the return of BBC’S Poldark in the ratings war, initial Sunday night figures appear to show.

However, Poldark could still dethrone its royal rival, as overnight figures for the BBC series do not take into account those watching on catch-up while the ITV programme’s figures do.

The two shows went headto-head with a 9pm slot with the first episode of series two of Poldark being viewed by an average of 5.1 million with an audience peak of 5.3 million.

Victoria scored a slightly 0 Jenna Coleman stars as Queen Victoria in ITV’S drama higher average of 5.2 million and peak of 5.9 million, with these numbers including those watching on ITV+1.

The series, starring Jenna Coleman as a young Queen Victoria, was the mostwatched drama on Sunday night with a 23.3% audience share.

Initial figures for Poldark show the Aidan Turner-fronted series set in Cornwall took a 22.7% share. This is the second week running that the lavish ITV drama has had the upper hand over a BBC broadcast.

Last Sunday night, Victoria’s debut episode beat the BBC’S remake of Are You Being Served? when the drama faced off against the return of the comedy favourite.

Victoria attracted 5.7 million viewers and 6.1 million at its peak, and Are You Being Served? claimed five million viewers, a peak of 5.2 million.