Live coverage of last night’s top-of-the-table Premier League clash between local rivals Manchester City and Manchester United attracted a record-breaking audience of over four million viewers for UK pay-television broadcaster BSkyB, according to research by SportBusiness Intelligence.
The match, which was shown on the Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 1 HD channels, drew the highest audience ever for a Sky Sports broadcast, attracting an average audience of 4.049 million viewers (a 16.2-per-cent share) for the match itself.
The overall match coverage, including pre- and post-game analysis, drew 2.558 million (an 11.5-per-cent share). The peak audience was 4.410 million (a 17.3-per-cent share), as the game went into five minutes of injury time.
The audience data does not include out-of-home viewing in pubs and clubs, nor does it include the number of viewers watching on the Sky 3D channel, for which audited viewing data is unavailable.
Sky’s previous top audience was for the Turkey v England Euro 2004 qualifier in October 2003, when 3.889 million viewers tuned in to watch England secure their place in the following summer’s European Championship finals.
The previous top Premier League audience on Sky Sports was in 2003, when an average audience of 3.436 million viewers watched Manchester United draw 2-2 with Arsenal in April of that year.
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