TV Overnights: Football scores a high of 6.5m viewers for ITV1
More than six million viewers tuned in to see Manchester United’s exit from the Champions League on ITV1 last night.
The channel’s Live UEFA Champions League coverage – on between 7.30pm and 10pm – attracted more than 5.4 million peak viewers on ITV1 and an extra 1.1 million peak viewers on ITV1 HD.
Despite winning its final group match, Manchester City also now dropped down into the Europa League alongside Manchester United – a result that will please Channel 5 (unless they are dedicated Manchester fans of course).
Channel 5 has the first pick of Europa League matches on Thursdays (with ITV4 and ESPN showing any other matches). Since January 2009, Channel 5’s top-rated matches have hit viewing figures of up to 3.6 million. Of the top 10 rated matches, Liverpool games feature nine times, while the Europa League Final in May 2010 pulled in 3.4 million viewers.
By comparison, ITV1’s top-rated football coverage of the UEFA Champions League has achieved audiences of more than 8.3 million viewers, so it will be interesting to see the change in ratings for the rest of the season.
Football did not manage to dominate all of the prime time ratings last night – BBC One’s popular Frozen Planet claimed the peak viewing figures from 9pm (with an audience of more than 7.4 million viewers tuning in at 9.45pm).
Elsewhere, BBC Two premiered the documentary film Inside Job at 9pm, which explored the global financial crash of 2008. It banked an average audience of 833,000 and a 3.7% share.
On Channel 4, a combination of Kirstie and Phil secured a peak audience of more than 2.2 million viewers during prime time. Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas pulled in an average audience of 1.9 million viewers, while Phil’s Empty Home Giveaway picked up 1.7 million average viewers.
Meanwhile, Channel 5’s 9pm film Erin Brockovich attracted over one million peak viewers and a 5.3% average share.
Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks and key multi-channel stations.