The final episode of series six of Line of Duty brought in an impressive 12.8 million viewers - a 56.2% share of the audience - for BBC One last night, early figures show.

Overnight ratings numbers have been steadily rising over the course of the series, with last week's penultimate episode drawing a record 11 million - a figure that has now been smashed.

The episode, which appeared to finally reveal the identity of 'The Fourth Man', dominated the 9pm hour and peaked with 13.06m (58.2%) at 9.45pm.

Overnight figures include viewers who watched a programme live or on demand before the 2am cutoff and in the case of Line of Duty, have risen dramatically in the following weeks after catch-up viewing is factored in.

Consolidated 28-day data for the first episode of series six came in at 15.2 million, with episode two drawing over 14.5 million, although the figures for both episodes have continued to rise impressively since.

Past episodes of the show have been a huge draw for iPlayer over the last two months, regularly garnering a total of more than 500,000 requests a day while series six has been ongoing.

The BBC will now be inevitably keen to commission a seventh series, although creator Jed Mercurio has yet to commit to the show's future either way.

Media Mole's ratings data is supplied by overnights.tv