Noel delivers Christmas ratings present

Sky One's Noel's Christmas Presents was the most watched non-sport multichannel offering over the festive period, with a sizeable audience of 1.1m (5.77%) on 23 December.

The show was a reprisal of the 1980s BBC programme that saw Edmonds reward people who had done outstanding charity work or suffered a traumatic year. The Sky One programme managed to hit a peak of 1.3m (6.88%) at 6.45pm and was some way above the channel's slot average for 2007 of 786,000 (4.49%).

The most watched multichannel programme over Christmas was Sky Sports 1's coverage of Manchester City versus Liverpool on 30 December. The entire three hour coverage, which began at 3.30pm, averaged a sizeable 1.5m (10.59%). The match itself, which kicked-off at 4pm, averaged a sizeable 2m (13.1%). The audience peaked with 2.1m (13.3%) in the final 15-minutes.

ITV2 also broke the 1m mark with its airing of the third film in the Jurassic Park trilogy on 28 December. The movie, starring Sam Neil, grabbed just over 1m (5.13%) at 9pm.

Films, generally, were a big draw over the festive period with multichannel viewers. Also proving popular were BBC3's Lara Croft Tomb Radier: The Cradle of Life with 800,000 (3.44%) on New Year's Day and ITV2's Sister Act drawing 767,000 (3.87%) on 30 December.

Over the entire holiday period 38 different programmes broke the half a million mark. More 4 had something of a surprise hit on its hand with Come Dine with Me on 30 December as the finale of the series brought in a substantial 534,000 (3.07%).

E4 also found popular success with its first run of the opening episode of the new series of Shameless. The episode at 11.15pm on New Year's Day grabbed a substantial 831,000 (8.91%).