Lost’s Audience Still Out At Sea On Sky One
Lost‘s return to Sky One brought an average audience of more than 1.1 million adult viewers to the channel last night, up slightly than before the Christmas break where its viewing figure sat at around one million.
The programme gave the station a 7% audience share on Sunday evening, following on from the 3.3% share that the espionage thriller 24 gained just prior to the desert island drama.
The season two double bill finale of Lost, screened on Channel 4 in September, saw the first show gain an average adult audience of around 2.7 million (a 16% audience share), whilst the second installment drew around 2.4 million adults (a 26.3% audience share) (see Lost Finale Draws In Viewers).
In October last year, Rupert Murdoch’s flagship station poached the hit series from Channel 4 for an estimated £20 million. Sky, who successfully poached 24 from the BBC in 2003, outbid C4 and other rival broadcasters for the new contract (see Sky One Poaches Lost From Channel 4).
Between 9pm and 10pm, Jack Bauer’s escapades in 24 drew an average adult audience of 636,000 to Sky One, up slightly from the season’s opening double bill last month, which attracted an average adult audience of 624,000 and 557,000 for the first and second episodes respectively (see Jack’s Back To Defeat Cowell).
ITV1 was the big primetime winner last night, with Savannah-set veterinary drama, Wild At Heart, and wartime detective series, Foyle’s War, gaining sizeable audience numbers.
Almost 6.5 million adults (26%) tuned in to catch up with the Trevanion family as they continue to adapt to life in Africa, whilst more than 7.4 million (23.5%) took a trip back in time during Foyle’s War.
BBC Two’s new show The Verdict, which sees 12 celebrities, including disgraced politician Jeffrey Archer, acting as the jury in a fictitious court case, was seen by a little shy of two million viewers (8.2%) and gained mixed reviews for its first installment. The last episode of the programme is screened on Thursday.
Dancing On Ice once again proved a success for the nation’s biggest commercial broadcaster, gaining an average of around 8.1 million viewers (40.8%) on Saturday for its first installment, whilst around 5.7 million (26%) stuck with the show for the skate-off.
Primeval – the action packed sci-fi adventures of a team of scientists battling prehistoric creatures that appear through rips in time – was also a hit for ITV1 on Saturday night. Despite a somewhat ludicrous premise, the broadcaster’s bright new hope was seen by around 6.1 million adults on Saturday between 7.30pm and 8.30pm, whilst hit animation film Shrek was watched by 5.2 million adults on BBC One between 7pm and 8.30pm.
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, ITV2 and Sky One.
ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk Channel 4: 020 7396 4444 www.channel4.com