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 | | Sunday, 18 November, 2001, 14:59 GMT Later Premiership loses viewers  The Premiership was moved to later slot ITV's flagship football show The Premiership has seen its viewing figures fall despite its move to a later slot to boost ratings. In its first Saturday night in its later slot of 10.30pm on 17 November, the show drew an average of 2.8 million viewers. This compares to top ratings of five million viewers when the Premiership highlights programme was being shown at 7pm. The move of the show followed several weeks of speculation in the press that it was not performing well enough to sustain its prime-time position. ITV director of channels David Liddiment stated that the move was regrettable but necessary because of pressures on the performance of the schedule and advertising revenues.
ITV's Director of Sport Brian Barwick admitted he too was disappointed by the move, but stood by Liddiment. Figures for The Premiership, hosted by Des Lynam, had increased in the weeks since it first began with around 3.3 million viewers. However, on Saturday, the figure for the highlights match between Whitby and Plymouth fell below that previous low point. The figure was almost equalled by BBC One's later football coverage in Match of the Day at 11.20pm which averaged 2.2 million viewers. In direct competition with The Premiership, chat show Parkinson - featuring Hollywood actor Samuel L Jackson - pulled in an average 6 million viewers. ITV's bid to showcase Premiership football began in August with what is thought to be the network's worst Saturday night audience for five years. ITV paid �183m for the rights to show premiership football over three years. The BBC will continue to show the action from FA Cup and England international matches. | | See also:  Top TV and Radio stories now:  Links to more TV and Radio stories are at the foot of the page. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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