By Stephen Dowling BBC News Online entertainment staff

The final series of Friends is performing well on E4

While BBC and ITV waged a ratings war against each other over Easter, their multi-channel rivals stole a march on them.

Digital and cable channels got 27.7% of the week's viewing, ahead of BBC One's 22.2% and ITV1's 22.9% - the highest share of the terrestrial stations.

Football showdowns such as the Arsenal vs Newcastle premiership match, as well as the foundations of the historic cricket innings by West Indian batsman Brian Lara, were some of the big draws for the Sky Sports channels.

The Arsenal vs Newcastle match alone gave them ratings of 1.6 million.

People shouldn't underestimate the variety of the terrestrial channels BBC spokeswoman

Channel 4's digital spin-off E4 got more than one million for an episode of US comedy Friends, the final season of which is being shown first on the channel.

Even a Saturday evening showing of the film Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second film based on the boy wizard's adventures, drew more than 900,000 viewers.

Meanwhile, some of the BBC's more high-profile shows struggled to attract viewers. The main part of Nicky Campbell's game show Come and Have a Go if You Think You're Smart Enough started two weeks ago with average of 3.9 million viewers, but that fell to three million on Easter Saturday.

MULTI-CHANNEL RATINGS WINNERS Arsenal vs Newcastle United, Sky Sports, Sunday - 1.6 million Friends, E4, Thursday - 1m Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Saturday - 910,000 Source: BBC Audience Research

The Dawn French sitcom Wild West, shown at 2130 BST on Friday, also managed 3.3 million viewers.

Among the other factors, analysts have said, was the fact children were home over the long weekend, boosting audiences of the cartoon and children's channels.

A BBC spokeswoman told BBC News Online the dominance of the non-terrestrial stations was evidence of the "changing TV landscape", but did not mean BBC One and Two were in decline.

"People shouldn't underestimate the variety of the terrestrial channels," she said.

What is happening is that all the channels are playing their part Sky Sports spokesman

"With the breadth and variety of on BBC One last week, we had a drama about the far right, England Expects, a Panorama special on Iraq, programmes such as Essentially English and Historyonics.

"On top of that, we still had our popular shows such as Casualty and Holby City. You wouldn't find that on any other terrestrial channel."

TERRESTRIAL STRUGGLERS Wild West, BBC One, Friday - 3.3m Come and Have a Go If You Think You're Smart Enough (first half), BBC One, Saturday - 3m New You've Been Framed, ITV1, Saturday - 3.2m

She said the fact that BBC One and Two did not appear as dominant as in the past would have no bearing on the BBC's charter renewal, which is currently being decided.

"The growth in the multi-channel audience emphasises why the BBC was right to have a digital strategy developed so early," she said.

A spokesman for Sky Sports said their coverage was not a record-breaker - and the network got more viewers for an Arsenal vs Manchester United match last Easter than this year's game.

He said looking at the week's top ten non-terrestrial programmes showed the ratings were not record-breaking.

Kids ruled the remote on their school break

"But non-terrestrial TV now has a wide choice of programming. Fifty-four per cent of all UK homes have access to digital TV in one form or another. Plenty of TV channels are responding to that demand.

"If you look at the top-rating programmes over the last week, they are not in themselves extraordinary.