Now I wonder why that could be, the bubble finally bursting? 
ITV''s football highlights show failed to pull in as many viewers as its BBC predecessor, Match of The Day, after being relegated to a late-night slot.
The programme, which began life at the heart of ITV1''s Saturday peak-time schedule, was moved to 10.30pm for the first time last weekend because it was dragging down average ratings.
The change to 10.30pm resulted in the loss of 1m viewers, leaving the programme with a 2.8m audience, compared with the 6m tuned into Parkinson on BBC1, according to overnight figures.
A Sunday morning repeat of The Premiership drew in a further 900,000 viewers.
Match of the Day, hosted by Gary Lineker, used to draw an average of 4m viewers at the same time on Saturday night, although this figure dropped to 3.5m in November last year. Its Sunday morning screenings attracted an average of 600,000 viewers.
An ITV spokesman said yesterday that the ratings gap between the new Premiership slot and BBC1''s Match of the Day was significantly reduced if the figures for the Sunday morning repeat and video recordings were taken into account.
"The BBC figure for the same week last year was considerably down on its average. It''s far too early to make any judgment after just one week at 10.30pm. But we are only 400,000 down on aggregate and when you bear in mind that anybody who video recorded the games has not been added to our figure, the two will be very close at the end of the process."
ITV''s football highlights show failed to pull in as many viewers as its BBC predecessor, Match of The Day, after being relegated to a late-night slot.
The programme, which began life at the heart of ITV1''s Saturday peak-time schedule, was moved to 10.30pm for the first time last weekend because it was dragging down average ratings.
The change to 10.30pm resulted in the loss of 1m viewers, leaving the programme with a 2.8m audience, compared with the 6m tuned into Parkinson on BBC1, according to overnight figures.
A Sunday morning repeat of The Premiership drew in a further 900,000 viewers.
Match of the Day, hosted by Gary Lineker, used to draw an average of 4m viewers at the same time on Saturday night, although this figure dropped to 3.5m in November last year. Its Sunday morning screenings attracted an average of 600,000 viewers.
An ITV spokesman said yesterday that the ratings gap between the new Premiership slot and BBC1''s Match of the Day was significantly reduced if the figures for the Sunday morning repeat and video recordings were taken into account.
"The BBC figure for the same week last year was considerably down on its average. It''s far too early to make any judgment after just one week at 10.30pm. But we are only 400,000 down on aggregate and when you bear in mind that anybody who video recorded the games has not been added to our figure, the two will be very close at the end of the process."