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- guardian.co.uk, Monday April 9 2001 14.04 BST
The UK television premiere of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace brought 1.5m viewers on Saturday night, during a big weekend for BSkyB's pay-TV channels.
The Phantom Menace, the prequel to the three original Star Wars movies, went out on Sky Premiere and Sky Premiere Widescreen between 8pm and 10.15pm on Saturday.
It drew an audience of 1.5m, according to unofficial overnights - an impressive figure for Sky Premiere, and the fourth Saturday night on the trot when a Star Wars movie premiere has topped 1m viewers.
The digitally remastered and reissued versions of the original trilogy began with Star Wars, which had 1m on March 17.
The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi both pulled in 1.2m on subsequent Saturdays.
Elsewhere, the premiere of Dervla Kirwan drama the Bombmaker helped Sky One to its best Sunday night this year.
The Bombmaker, a two-part thriller about a former IRA operative whose daughter is kidnapped to force her back into action, opened with 0.8m and a 7.8% share of viewing in multi-channel homes.
Overall, Sky One had a 6% share of viewing in multi-channel homes between 6pm and 10.30pm last night.
Yesterday afternoon it was Sky Sports 2's turn to pull in a big audience.
Live FA Cup semi-final action between Arsenal and Tottenham, had 1.6m viewers and a stonking 30% share of the audience in multi-channel homes.
