The first live show of this year's Strictly Come Dancing pulled in an average of 6.58 million viewers - a 44.2% share of the audience - according to overnight figures.
The programme, which aired between 6.15pm and 8.35pm on BBC One, peaked with 7.29m and the final figure is expected to comfortably top 9m when catch-up viewing is included in the days and weeks ahead.
The figure of 6.58m is roughly on par with the equivalent show from last year, which aired on September 24, 2022 and pulled in 6.74m (44.8%).
Elsewhere on Saturday, England's crushing victory over Chile in the Rugby World Cup drew 2.48m (23.8%) to ITV1 between 3.55pm and 7pm, although ratings figures do not account for people watching in pubs and bars.
The first episode in a new series of Michael McIntyre's The Wheel was the second most-watched programme of the day on any channel, averaging 4.23m (29.3%) for BBC One from 8.35pm.
> Strictly Come Dancing: Week one leaderboard in full
Media Mole's ratings data is supplied by overnights.tv
Neil Wilkes
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