Terrestrial Football Scores Well Amongst Top Programmes

Terrestrial football, in the guise of the Coca Cola quarter final match between Arsenal and Newcastle, shown live on ITV on 10th January, brought sport into the top 30 programmes for only the first time since the Wimbledon Men’s Final in July 95. The last completely domestic game shown live on terrestrial TV, which found a place in the top programmes list, was the 1994 FA Cup final which attracted 11.76 million viewers.

Viewing fell across the board – Whilst ‘All TV’ fell by only 0.5% year on year to 27 hours and 37 minutes, ITV’s hours of viewing fell 8.6% over the same period to 10 hours and 6 minutes. The same picture was true in Astra homes although terrestrial channels did pick up 1.8% points in terms of share compared to last year, Sky and Astra shares fell by 1.7% points and 1.9% points respectively.