More than 100,000 people tuned in to watch Liverpool's win over Sheffield United - a much lower figure than would be expected if the game was not on pay per view.
New figures released around Sky Box Office's Premier League matches have shown a drop in viewing figures for these games.
The British Audience Research Board (BARB) has released its latest estimates on TV audience figures - including Sky Box Office.
TV executive Joel Minsky has shared the figures, and they make for interesting reading.
The first weekend of matches on Sky Box Office saw low audience numbers, with Newcastle United against Manchester United attracting 40,000 viewers.
Half of that amount are estimated to have watched Leicester City’s game against Aston Villa.
Last weekend’s games saw viewing figures increase, with 110,000 watching Liverpool against the Blades.
And a further 140,000 watched Arsenal’s defeat to Leicester City on Sunday evening.
These figures come from BARB viewing estimates, with 5,3000 households sampled and the figures extrapolated for the population.
Minsky points out that “sampling is very statistically sound and is considered a gold standard in the UK as well as globally for TV measurement.”
By contrast, Manchester United’s game against Chelsea on Saturday evening, which was on Sky Sports’ subscriber channels, averaged an audience of 1.7m viewers.
The figures do not include BT Sport Box Office matches, which are not measured by BARB.
Both Sky and BT Sport have declined to share viewing data themselves.
The Mirror have reported that both broadcasters are keen to scrap pay per view games due to how unpopular they are with fans.
It is worth noting that, because BARB estimates viewing figures rather than households watching things, not all of those viewers will translate into subscriber payments.
