The Masked Singer made a strong start to life in the UK on Saturday night, but was abandoned by more than a fifth of its audience on its second outing for commercial broadcaster ITV.

The celebrity singing contest entertained an audience of 4.3M between 8PM and 9.30PM on Sunday night, which was down nearly 22% on its Saturday performance of 5.5M, according to BARB figures supplied by overnights.tv.

The Masked Singer revealed the identity of Pharaoh, but it was not enough to prevent the show from being beaten Neal Street drama Call The Midwife (7m) and Ecosse Films’ The Trial of Christine Keeler (4.4m) over on BBC1.

Produced by Bandicoot TV, the entertainment show’s 20.67% share of the total UK television audience was still well up on the 17.54% an ITV show usually attracts in the Sunday night slot.

Earlier in the evening, the second half of a two-part blockbuster episode of Doctor Who hit BBC One with an audience of 4.6M between 7PM and 8PM.

It was down 8% on the 5M viewers who tuned in last week, and the overnight audience was Jodie Whittaker’s lowest yet as the Tardis-traveling Time Lord.

As always with big-ticket dramas, the BBC Studios show will likely grow its audience significantly once seven-day catchup viewing figures are available. Doctor Who is also an important show for BBC streaming service iPlayer.