'American Idol' helps ITV2 top Sky One

The return of American Idol helped ITV2 to leapfrog Sky One in the ratings last week, the Guardian reports today.

The fourth season of the pop reality contest premiered Friday night over three hours in two instalments, drawing audiences of 889,000 and 942,000 respectively.

The figures are a far cry from the 33.5 million US viewers who tuned into the episodes earlier in the week but are huge on a UK multichannel scale.

The channel is also enjoying success with its regular 9pm movie repeats. Last week X-Men, The Sixth Sense and Liar, Liar averaged 472,000 viewers, 446,000 viewers and 474,000 viewers respectively.

Overall across the week, ITV2 had an average multichannel share of 2.4% versus Sky One's 1.9%.

Despite its apparent success, ITV2 is available in significantly more homes than its pay TV rival thanks to carriage on Freeview. Removing those homes from the equation, Sky One moves back ahead.

ITV2 launched a new schedule this month and is planning to introduce more new series, including several big US reality shows, throughout the spring.