There's been very few things of interest to report in the ratings recently, but this week, there is at least one interesting story to report, and it comes in the publically available programme ratings for the various multi-channels.
It has to be said that Sky Sports 1 does sometimes rate better than the 1.8% share they got this week, but this week's rating was helped by what must be close to a record rating, if not a record for the highest rated programme on a non-terrestrial channel. Sunday's Carling Cup Final between Chelsea and Tottenham drew a rating of 2.354 million viewers. So few programmes of any kind draw a rating over 2 million on the non-terrestrials that it draws a lot of attention when it does happen.
On it's own that is pretty decent ratings, but it was the peak of a great ratings week for the non-terrestrials. BBC Three saw episodes of Eastenders and Torchwood score over the million mark, E4 saw a Hollyoaks episode miss the million by just 26,000 viewers, An episdoe of Home and Away on Five Life scored 924,000 viewers, which I believe to be a channel record, ITV2 scored over 1.3 million for an episode of Ghosthunting, A UEFA Cup match on ITV4 scored almost 1.1 million, both Lost and Ross Kemp In Afghanistan scored over 1 million viewers for Sky One, and a Saturday lunchtime Premiership match on Sky Sports 1 also managed over 1 million viewers. In total, 8 programmes scored over 1 million viewers this week, which is a heck of a performance, considering most weeks, it's a good performance when half that many programmes get over the million mark.
One thing that almost depresses me, is the performance of the shopping channels. Bid TV, for instance, gets almost 1.5 million viewers a week. Price Drop TV scores around 1.2 million viewers, whilst QVC scores over 1.8 million, topping the shopping channel stakes. It saddens me to think that so many people prefer to watch this rubbish, rather than some of the good stuff on other channels that doesn't score quite so highly but is so much better.
