TV

Sky News Debate pulls in 4 million

Published Sunday, Apr 25 2010, 09:31 BST | By Neil Wilkes
Prime Ministerial debate

© ITV

The second leaders' debate pulled in a total live audience of over 4 million viewers on Thursday night.

The 90-minute debate was produced by Sky News and anchored by the channel's political editor, Adam Boulton. It also marked the launch of the Sky News HD channel.

An average of 2.13m watched live on Sky News between 8pm and 9.30pm, while 1.36m opted for the BBC News Channel's simulcast. A further 586k watched live on Sky3.

A repeat of the debate was seen by an average of 310k (6.6%) on BBC Two over two hours from 11.30pm.

After the debate ended, Sky News kept a decent 1.38m until 10pm, then 446k remained through to 11pm.

Other popular multichannel programmes on Thursday night included Russell Howard's Good News, with 722k (4.4%) for BBC Three at 10.30pm, and Sky1's Bones, seen by 569k (3.1%) in the 10pm hour.

On BBC One, Watchdog took 3.2m (13.2%) in the 8pm hour, then Have I Got News For You and Outnumbered picked up 4.35m (17.6%) and 5.06m (20.8%) respectively.

ITV1's Great Cities of the World with Griff Rhys Jones averaged 2.91m (11.9%) in the 9pm hour.

Five's live UEFA coverage averaged 2.46m (10.5%) from 7.30pm.

Museum of Life and Welcome To Lagos delivered 910k (3.8%) and 1.24m (5.1%) for BBC Two, while on Channel 4, The Landscape Man and How The Other Half Live had 980k (4%) and 1.38m (5.6%).

Overall, BBC One led primetime with an average share of 21.4% to ITV1's 18.3%. Five was third with 8.6%, followed by Channel 4 with 4.6% (+1: 0.6%) and BBC Two with 4.8%.

BARB ratings data supplied by Attentional
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