Since the arrival of Sky News to Saorview in November the 24 hour UK news services has become the 5th most watch TV channel, growing its audience from 0.87% in November 2021 to 3.6% in March 2021. The channel was added to the Free-To-Air terrestrial service in late November 2021. Sky channels now command nearly 10% of the TV viewing audience, while Virgin Media TV had a 20% share across its channels, with RTÉ having a 29% share. The most viewed programme was Ireland V England on March 12th with 778,500 viewers, while Ireland V Scotland on VMTV one had 683,600 viewers in second place.
November\'s winder sports coverage and the annual Late Late Toy Show helped RTÉ get 28% of the audience with Virgin Media TV retain 19%. The Late Late Toy Show topped the TV charts once more, with an average audience of 1.8 million across the week. The live show had 1.56 million people tuned to the annual event, with additional 292,000 viewers watching on RTÉ ONE +1 and the Saturday repeat. RTÉ also scored well with sports getting a 6% of the audience, with the Irish Women\'s stunning win against Georgia getting an average audience of 209,000 viewers, along with 131,000 for FAI coverage and 686,000 for Ireland V New Zealand in Rugby. \r\n
October saw RTÉ2\'s audience drop back to 5%, this compares to its best summer results in several years. RTÉ ONE\'s drama KIN remained the most watched show with 631,600 viewers, down slightly from September\'s 686,600 viewers. Virgin Media one\'s Gogglebox Ireland on October 27th had 274,400 viewers. Overall RTÉ held 26% of the audience, while Virgin Media Television retained 19%.
RTÉ has seen both Sporting action and Drama return viewers. RTÉ2\'s coverage of the All Ireland Football Final had 944,600, while RTÉ ONE\'s drama KIN had 686,600. The Great British Bake Off on Channel 4 returned with 178,300 viewers. Overall RTÉ held 28% of the audience, while Virgin Media Television retained 18%.
Nearly 80,000 people across the Island Of Ireland contracted COVID-19 in September 2021. The Republic saw a 21% drop in the number of cases from August, and well of ahead of the 7,572 figure of September 2020. Northern Ireland saw a drop of 17% from August with 37,207 cases reported. In total there have been 630,328 COVID cases since the pandemic began in 2020. In total 4.9 million people have been fully vaccinated (71% of the total population), with 347,486 getting their second jab in September, the republic saw 302,383 second doses administered with the north delivering 45,103 in August. \r\n