In all, the programme pulled in a peak 12.6m viewers who tuned in to see actress Kate Ford found guilty of killing her boyfriend Charlie with an statuette. The culmination of the trial brought to an end a long running storyline involving Ford who will now leave the show after five years.
The success of 'Coronation Street', which gave ITV its best Monday prime-time share since Jan 15 2007 with 33.4%, plunged BBC One to its 5th worst Monday night of all time. 'Panorama' fell to its lowest audience of the series with 2.3m and 'Eastenders' performed poorly attracting just 8.9m.
The story line had been fuelled by fevered tabloid speculation and ITV filmed two endings to keep viewers guessing to the last.
The programme scored an average rating of 11.3m, 53.2% at 19:30 with an average of 11.8m and 50.2% share watching the second instalment of the double bill. This was the best share for the 20:30 programme since Nov 04.
The trial finale saw viewing figures leap for the ITV1 soap, which last week pulled in 10.2m.
Despite the 12.6m high, it is a long way off of the numbers that ITV was once getting for the show. Nine years ago more than 19m watched Deidre Barlow wrongly imprisoned, and in 2003 more than 16m watched Dirty Den's return to rival BBC One soap 'EastEnders'.
On Channel 4 'Deal or No Deal' saw its decline continue when it had its worst Monday volume performance since September with just 2.5m, 29.1% share. The new series of 'The New Paul 'O Grady Show' also performed poorly with just 2m, 18.8% share, down 1.4m, 6.7 share points on the series opener in 2006.
ITV2 was the top non-terrestrial channel in all time with a 2.0% share. In contrast, Sky One had a terrible day with only 0.8% share in both all time and prime time, suffering its worst ever Monday.
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