ITV, however, through its coverage of the Uefa Champions League and England national team matches, accounted for the top four sports programmes of the year and seven of the Top 10.
In the Top 100 most-watched sports programmes on digital and satellite channels, cricket broke football’s monopoly with three matches from the ICC’s 2009 Twenty20 World Championship breaking into the list. Premier League matches accounted for 58 of the Top 100 matches, followed by the Uefa Champions League with 14 and the Carling Cup with 10.
In the Top-100 non-football digital and satellite list, cricket took 47 places, helped by Twenty20 and BSkyB’s first-ever exclusive live coverage of the England-Australia Ashes series. ITV4’s Tour de France coverage took 15 places, rugby union 12 places, darts nine and motorcycling six.
For the full survey see the latest edition of TV Sports Markets.