Football kicks off ratings hike

Phillip Reevell on the week's ratings.

'We can be Heroes,' as David Bowie put it. 'Twice in one day,' as the schedulers on BBC2 and BBC3 might have added. The sci-fi drama is performing strongly on both BBC3 and BBC2. The BBC3 episode, which went out on Wednesday at 10 pm, had 1 million/7% share. Over on BBC2 an earlier episode at 9pm attracted 2.7 million/13% share. I can almost hear both controllers singing the next line of the song - 'We can beat them, forever and ever'.

Meanwhile, for consistency of audience over the next nine months, you can't beat the drama of the Premier League.

Footie's back with a sensational opening episode - Wayne Rooney breaking his foot in the first Sunday of the season. The Man United versus Reading game, which aired on Sky Sports 1 at 3.30pm on Sunday, had an audience of 1.3 million/13% share.

Rooney's injury has set up some great storylines for the autumn, making the crucial England internationals all the more important, and adding intrigue to the rivalry between the Premier League's big guns.

Chelsea's Sunday lunchtime game had 860,000 viewers/12% share when it aired on Sky Sports 1 at 1pm. And on Saturday, Sky Sports 1's opening match of the season, which saw Roy Keane's Sunderland meet Tottenham, had 770,000 viewers/14% share when it aired at 12pm. As a result of all this footie, Sky Sports 1 had a weekly share of 2.2%, up from 1.5% the previous week.

Setanta also aired its first ever Premier League match on Saturday with Liverpool's win over Aston Villa. It attracted 355,000/3.5% share in multi-channel homes. This equates to around 15% of Setanta's 2.5 million British and Irish customers.

Match of the Day 2 on BBC2 on Sunday at 10.45pm had three of the big clubs in action. Its audience of 2.4 million/20% share compares well with the 3.6 million/25% share for Saturday's Match of the Dayon BBC1 at 10.15pm.