Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway burst back onto screens with an audience peak of 8.1 million viewers, with the show averaging an impressive 7.3million viewers. This makes it the second highest rating programme of the year*, outside of news and sport across any channel.

The audience last night continues ITV’s ratings dominance on Saturday nights - with ITV being the most watched channel across over 75% or 45 out of the 60 Saturdays since the start of 2020. This rises to over 77% of Saturdays (46 out of 60 Saturdays) in terms of popularity with 16-34 audiences.

The 2021 series opened to 1.2m 16-34 viewers, making it one of the highest rating programmes of the year for this demographic, outside of news and sport.

[end]

*ITV's The Masked Singer is the highest rating programme of the year, outside of news and sport.