TV Viewing Summary W/E 20/09/98

ITV’s coverage of the 1998/99 Champions’ League proper has got off to an reasonable start with an audience of 8.35 million for the first match involving the Sky Reds of Manchester and Catalan giants Barcelona. This year’s viewing figures are down slightly on the first match of last season, between Newcastle United and Barcelona which was watched by 8.91 million viewers.

Taking a closer look at the individual ratings by franchise area it is clear that this season’s coverage is proving to be slightly less attractive when compared to last season.

Elsewhere, the return to the BBC1 schedules of Ballykissangel, Neighbours At War and Airport, has helped to keep the channel’s viewing share at 28.4% (the same as the previous week’s). The programmes were watched respectively by audiences of 7.4, 7.8 and 9.8 million. ITV’s viewing share is down from 31.9% to 30.6%.

Over on Channel 5 things are on the up with all of its top ten programmes regularly achieving audiences of over one million. The most watched programme of this week was the film First Blood which was watched by 2.35 million. The channel’s weekly share of viewing is at its second highest ever at 5.3% for the week.

Reviewer: Simon Wright

To make comments on this TV Summary, take a look at the Media Pub.

Subscribers can access the TV database by selecting “Television” from the drop-down box at the top of this page.