7.3 million tune into TV debates

That makes it ITV’s most watched show, apart from soaps so far this year.

Last night’s seven-way leaders’ debate was watched by an average seven million people, ratings figures show.

The two-hour ITV broadcast was the highest-rating programme on television last night, according to the data – with a peak audience of 7.35 million.

1.5 million people tweeted about the show which means that it was also the second most tweeted about show this year – losing out to the Brit Awards.

However it trailed behind the historic 2010 debates between David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg which had an average of 9.4 million viewers, hitting a peak of 10.3 million.