TV ratings: December 17

Celebrity Big Brother's topped 5 million viewers on the back of the alleged racism row, but ratings are still down on last year's show.

Last night's instalment of the Channel 4 reality show averaged 5.2 million viewers, the third highest audience of this series to date.

With a 21% share of the audience, it peaked with its last 15 minutes with an audience of 5.7 million.

But despite the huge amount of press coverage generated by the on-screen bullying of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, the average audience for the fifth series of Big Brother is still down on last year.

The 9pm and 9.30pm shows have averaged 3.9m viewers so far this year, compared with 4.1m at the same stage of the fourth series last year. In audience percentage terms, this year's show has 16% compared with 17% in 2006.

The highest audience for this year's run was the 7.1 million who watched the contestants enter the house, followed by the 4.7 million who watched the Goody family arrive two weeks ago.

Celebrity Big Brother narrowly lost out to ITV1 drama Taggart, which drew 5.3 million, but beat Match of the Day on BBC1. Live coverage of Birmingham's 5-1 FA Cup drubbing of Newcastle averaged 4.5m across two and a half hours of coverage until 10pm.

At 9pm, BBC2 documentary The 12-Year-Old Cocaine Smuggler - This World had 1.6 million, while Channel Five's Billy Connolly film The Man Who Sued God averaged 1.4 million.

Elsewhere last night, property show Relocation, Relocation showed its enduring appeal with 4 million viewers, a 17% share, for the second episode of the new series.

Presenters Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer beat Ray Mears's Wild Food on BBC2. Mears, who was last night spearing fish from a canoe, averaged 2.8 million viewers.

Later, Channel 4's Desperate Housewives attracted 2.7 million viewers, a 14% share, for the fourth episode of the new series. It was 200,000 down on the third instalment last week.

The Teri Hatcher drama lost out to ITV's Taggart and BBC1's 10pm news, which drew 4.3 million viewers, but predictably had the better of BBC2's Coupling repeat, which could only manage 800,000.

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