Look, there’ll be a more interesting update along later today, okay?
Anyway, we’ve taken a look at Sky One’s weekly top ten viewing figures over the last 52 weeks. BARB doesn’t have any data for two of the weeks in that period (for some unexplained reason), which leaves us with a total of 500 shows to work from. Which is a handy figure for knocking up charts, so we’ll work with that.
Sky One’s hundred most watched shows over the last year (hey, it might come in handy for someone) are as follows, just after an alarming picture of Rupert Murdoch from BSkyB’s Annual Shareholder’s Report for 2003. See if you can tell what we’ve changed.
That’s right, we’ve cropped out some of the foliage from that shot. That top hundred:
| overall | show | viewers |
| 1 | Noels Christmas Presents 2 (21-Dec-08) | 1,553 |
| 2 | Lost (01-Feb-09) | 1,326 |
| 3 | Lost (01-Mar-09) | 1,264 |
| 4 | Lost (22-Feb-09) | 1,220 |
| 5 | Lost (25-Jan-09) | 1,195 |
| 6 | The Simpsons (22-Mar-09) | 1,185 |
| 7 | Lost (15-Feb-09) | 1,180 |
| 8 | Lost (22-Mar-09) | 1,170 |
| 9 | Lost (08-Feb-09) | 1,158 |
| 10 | Skellig (12-Apr-09) | 1,155 |
| 11 | Ross Kemp: Return To Afghanistan (01-Feb-09) | 1,153 |
| 12 | Lost (05-Apr-09) | 1,117 |
| 13 | The Simpsons (01-Feb-09) | 1,107 |
| 14 | Ross Kemp: Return To Afghanistan (22-Feb-09) | 1,103 |
| 15 | Lost (17-May-09) | 1,099 |
| 16 | Ross Kemp: Return To Afghanistan (15-Feb-09) | 1,099 |
| 17 | Lost (19-Apr-09) | 1,091 |
| 18 | Bones (16-Nov-08) | 1,082 |
| 19 | Lost (17-May-09) | 1,076 |
| 20 | Ross Kemp: Return To Afghanistan (08-Feb-09) | 1,071 |
| 21 | Lost (08-Mar-09) | 1,061 |
| 22 | Lost (12-Apr-09) | 1,059 |
| 23 | House Season 5 (26-Jul-09) | 1,052 |
| 24 | The Simpsons (11-Jan-09) | 1,047 |
| 25 | Lost (10-May-09) | 1,034 |
| 26 | Lost (03-May-09) | 1,020 |
| 27 | House Season 5 (26-Jul-09) | 997 |
| 28 | The Simpsons (30-Nov-08) | 987 |
| 29 | House Season 5 (05-Jul-09) | 986 |
| 30 | Bones (22-Mar-09) | 983 |
| 31 | The Simpsons (16-Nov-08) | 982 |
| 32 | Bones (30-Nov-08) | 959 |
| 33 | Bones (17-May-09) | 946 |
| 34 | Bones (03-May-09) | 945 |
| 35 | Lost (29-Mar-09) | 945 |
| 36 | House Season 5 (16-Aug-09) | 927 |
| 37 | House Season 5 (12-Jul-09) | 925 |
| 38 | Bones (10-May-09) | 921 |
| 39 | The Simpsons (08-Mar-09) | 911 |
| 40 | Bones (24-May-09) | 910 |
| 41 | The Simpsons (25-Jan-09) | 910 |
| 42 | Martina Coles The Take (05-Jul-09) | 903 |
| 43 | 24 Season 7 (18-Jan-09) | 903 |
| 44 | House Season 5 (09-Aug-09) | 896 |
| 45 | The Simpsons (07-Dec-08) | 896 |
| 46 | House Season 5 (09-Aug-09) | 893 |
| 47 | Martina Coles The Take (21-Jun-09) | 890 |
| 48 | Martina Coles The Take (21-Jun-09) | 888 |
| 49 | Bones (05-Oct-08) | 886 |
| 50 | Bones (19-Apr-09) | 885 |
| 51 | The Simpsons (09-Nov-08) | 885 |
| 52 | Bones (08-Mar-09) | 874 |
| 53 | House Season 5 (31-May-09) | 872 |
| 54 | Bones (25-Apr-09) | 871 |
| 55 | The Simpsons (22-Feb-09) | 871 |
| 56 | Ross Kemp In Search Of Pirates (21-Jun-09) | 867 |
| 57 | House Season 5 (02-Aug-09) | 866 |
| 58 | Ross Kemp: Return To Afghanistan (01-Mar-09) | 862 |
| 59 | House Season 5 (02-Aug-09) | 852 |
| 60 | 24 Season 7 (01-Feb-09) | 852 |
| 61 | Gladiators (16-Nov-08) | 850 |
| 62 | Bones (28-Sep-08) | 848 |
| 63 | House Season 5 (31-May-09) | 843 |
| 64 | House Season 5 (13-Sep-09) | 840 |
| 65 | Bones (15-Mar-09) | 837 |
| 66 | The Simpsons (04-Jan-09) | 834 |
| 67 | House Season 5 (30-Aug-09) | 831 |
| 68 | 24 Season 7 (08-Feb-09) | 829 |
| 69 | House Season 5 (21-Jun-09) | 828 |
| 70 | House Season 5 (14-Jun-09) | 827 |
| 71 | Bones (29-Mar-09) | 824 |
| 72 | Bones (19-Oct-08) | 822 |
| 73 | House Season 5 (19-Jul-09) | 814 |
| 74 | The Simpsons (09-Nov-08) | 813 |
| 75 | 24 Season 7 (15-Feb-09) | 811 |
| 76 | Bones (12-Oct-08) | 811 |
| 77 | House Season 5 (23-Aug-09) | 808 |
| 78 | The Simpsons (04-Jan-09) | 803 |
| 79 | Bones (02-Nov-08) | 803 |
| 80 | Bones (01-Mar-09) | 802 |
| 81 | Bones (26-Oct-08) | 797 |
| 82 | Bones (22-Feb-09) | 796 |
| 83 | Bones (12-Apr-09) | 795 |
| 84 | The Simpsons (01-Feb-09) | 795 |
| 85 | House Season 5 (07-Jun-09) | 794 |
| 86 | 24 Season 7 (05-Apr-09) | 794 |
| 87 | Ross Kemp In Search Of Pirates (14-Jun-09) | 780 |
| 88 | Fringe (26-Oct-08) | 768 |
| 89 | The Simpsons (01-Feb-09) | 766 |
| 90 | The Simpsons (08-Feb-09) | 763 |
| 91 | House Season 5 (28-Jun-09) | 761 |
| 92 | The Simpsons (28-Dec-08) | 760 |
| 93 | The Simpsons (25-Jan-09) | 754 |
| 94 | House Season 5 (06-Sep-09) | 751 |
| 95 | The Simpsons (26-Oct-08) | 749 |
| 96 | Gladiators (04-Jan-09) | 748 |
| 97 | Bones (31-May-09) | 743 |
| 98 | 24 Season 7 (12-Apr-09) | 743 |
| 99 | The Simpsons (28-Dec-08) | 740 |
| 100 | Lie To Me Season 1 (12-Jul-09) | 739 |
Source: BARB.co.uk The programmes shown were broadcast in the weeks ending in the listed dates.
So, quite a mixed bunch at the top. Slightly surprisingly, as least to us, it’s Noel’s Christmas Holiday Acciden… erm, Present 2 at the top of the pile, with over 1.5million viewers. The majority of the top ten is taken up with the penultimate series of Lost, while the “world premiere” episode of The Simpsons (where the family visit Ireland) also makes the ten. Tim Roth’s performance in original children’s drama production Skellig rounds off the top ten.
No, we’re fine thank you Rupert. So, chucking that lot into a chart that’s never going to be very representative given the fact 84% of Sky One’s primetime schedule is taken up with Simpsons repeats, what do we get?
Pretty much as you might expect. But, what happens when we take account of the types of show making up the 500?
Quite interesting. Only 7% of the shows on the list are actually made in the UK specifically for Sky. Now, we’ll admit that UK-sourced programming was unlikely to eat into the Simpso-Futurama portion of the pie, as it’s so bloody scarce on Sky One, but 7% is really rather poor. It’s also quite interesting to note that not a single live-action US comedy makes the pie – have there been any on Sky One over the last year? At most points in the channel’s history, you could have expected to see shows like Seinfeld, Mad About You, Married With Children, Friends or maybe even Night Court on there (may even I Love Lucy, if you go back far enough), but that seems to have been an entire genre they’ve given up on.
Sky really do seem to be spreading their programming portfolio rather thinly. Of the entire listing, 83.6% of it is taken from just six shows: The Simpsons, Bones, 24, House, Fringe and Lost. Given that three of those shows only interested Sky in the first place was because of the audiences they were getting on other channels (BBC Two, five and Channel Four, you can probably work out the shows yourselves), you might have to question what the programme buyers at Sky One do all day. Apart from sift through BARB’s website so see which shows they can pinch from elsewhere, that is.
Yikes. At this point, you could reasonably say that the US imports dominate the charts because they run for much longer seasons than the original programming commissioned by Sky. A chart compiled of average ratings per programme would probably reveal a lot more, wouldn’t it?
And indeed it would, with the top ten programmes now including a total of six home-grown productions. Noel’s Christmas Presents 2 wins the (notional) annual prize, with Mr Roth in second place. Even Gladiators makes the cut, and with the Simpsons pool being thinned out by repeats in less popular slots, it slips down to sixteenth. Gratifyingly, that means Futurama sneaks ahead of it.
So, with those figures in mind, why doesn’t Sky come up with more original programming? The stock answer here would be “because importing shows is cheaper – duh!”, but Sky reportedly pay Buena Vista International a whopping £700,000 per episode of Lost. That’s comfortably enough to make an episode of a home-grown drama series. So, come on Sky, why don’t you?
Brr. It’s okay Rupe, we’ll walk home.
TOMORROW: Not sure. Maybe BBC Four.
(Editor’s note: Yes, it should technically have been James Murdoch in those pictures, but that wouldn’t have been nearly as unsettling as Captain Jowls up there.)
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