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"MasterChef: The Professionals ended with an impressive audience on Thursday night (December 13), early viewing figures show. The BBC Two cookery spinoff averaged 3.78m (15.6%) and peaked with over 4.5m as two winners were announced for the first time in the franchise&amp;#039;s history.   With The Professionals now in its fourth run, having started in 2008, yesterday&amp;#039;s finale achieved a new all-time high, beating the previous 3.6m record set only on Tuesday. BBC Two&amp;#039;s MasterChef earned a surprise victory over BBC One&amp;#039;s Young Apprentice, which retained a steady if unspectacular 3.18m (13.1%) in the 8pm slot for series three&amp;#039;s penultimate episode.  Airing in a quieter 9pm hour, Britain&amp;#039;s Hidden Housing Crisis (3.68m/17%) led the way for BBC One, Pensioners Behind Bars interested 3.44m (15.9%) on ITV1 (+1: 288,000), Jamie and Jimmy&amp;#039;s Food Fight Club logged 1.36m (6.3%) for Channel 4 (+1: 146k), The Hour hooked 1.17m (5.4%) for BBC Two, and 1m (4.6%) watched Channel 5&amp;#039;s Cowboy Builders. Overall, ITV won primetime with 20.1% (+1: 0.9%), beating BBC One&amp;#039;s 19.3%, BBC Two&amp;#039;s 8.3%, Channel 4&amp;#039;s 4.7% (+1: 0.9%), and Channel 5&amp;#039;s 3.6% (+1: 0.2%). The Big Bang Theory extended its domination over Celebrity Juice in the multichannel world, soaring to 1.41m (5.6%) at 8pm on E4 (+1: 435k) while A Celebrity Juicemas Carol attracted 1.12m (6.7%) at 10pm on ITV2 (+1: 148k).  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/masterchef/news/a445234/masterchef-the-professionals-final-beats-young-apprentice/>