10.6m tune in to see Vanessa go

Jessica Hodgson
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday March 14 2001 11.52 GMT

The eviction of Vanessa Feltz from the Celebrity Big Brother house boosted audiences to the show's biggest high yet, pulling in more than 10m viewers, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The population's thirst for the celebrity version of last year's smash reality show was seemingly unquenchable, grabbing 5.7m viewers for Channel 4 and a 23% audience share.

BBC1's 10.35pm update also took almost 5m viewers, 29% of audience share.

However, the unfolding melodrama was not enough to knock ITV's A Touch of Frost off the top spot.

The David Jason vehicle pulled in 7.9m viewers, 33% of audience share.

Channel 5's watching-paint-dry reality show Touching the Truck performed a startling rally last night, regaining almost all of the viewers it shed last night.

The programme, which features 20 contestants battling to keep some part of their body attached to a £33,000 truck, opened well on Sunday night, with 1m viewers.

On Monday, the programme went neck and neck with EastEnders for the first time, and lost 400,000 viewers.

Last night, with EastEnders going out at the earlier time of 7.30pm, Touch the Truck picked up again in the ratings, taking it back to 900,000 viewers.

The show, fronted by Dale Winton, has proved strangely compelling to some critics because of the sheer boredom factor.

Yesterday eight of the 20 contestants were forced to bow out.