Later at 10pm, Channel 4's new student comedy Fresh Meat (above), from the writers of Peep Show, launched with 1.5m viewers, rising to 1.6m if Channel 4+1's audience is included. This beat Channel 5's Big Brother (1.32m), BBC2's Never Mind The Buzzcocks repeat (1.1m) and Newsnight (600k), but wasn't enough to triumph against BBC1's comedy panel show Ask Rhod Gilbert (1.69m).
But both shows did well considering they're brand new. Word of mouth may help increase ratings in week 2, especially if the majority of the target youth audience are catching up later in the week.
