SMALL PRINT:IT HAS won dozens of awards, has millions of viewers, celebrities are lining up to make cameo appearances and it's launched the careers of many of Britain's most popular actors. Yes, Coronation Streetis one of the hottest shows on TV . . . but you wouldn't think it to read broadsheet newspapers.

Readers might be forgiven for thinking shows such as Mad Men are mainstream staples, perhaps at the expense of less fashionable shows, such as soap operas.

After all, Jon Hamm, Mad Men's handsome star, has appeared on the cover of countless magazines (including the Radio Timesand Rolling Stone). In fact, the San Francisco Chronicle reported last week that UC Berkley may hold a course on the TV series.

But all of this gives is an inaccurate representation of the show’s popularity.

To illustrate: 2.2 million people recently watched the season finale of Mad Men in the US. That sounds impressive, but it's a paltry sum when you consider that it's almost a million shy of the number of viewers watching reality show Keeping up with the Kardashians; that Mad Men's viewers are down 24 per cent on its previous season; and terrestrial hits such as Grey's Anatomyroutinely exceed 10 million viewers in the US.

It's a strange, modern trend, and Baltimore cop show The Wirewent through the same phenomenon. For all the hype, it barely made a ripple on either side of the Atlantic. Irish viewers might have caught it on Channel 6, it took years to nab a graveyard slot on BBC 2. Stars of the show, such as Idris Elba, enjoyed critical acclaim and a higher profile thanks to the show, but in the UK, Elba's Luther got nine time more viewers than The Wire, and only a fraction of the coverage.

With the best of intentions, media coverage is often biased by personal taste and is frequently not representative of what people actually watch or listen to.

If you really want to be in tune with what's shaping TV trends, I prescribe one episode each of the X Factor, The Apprenticeand Strictly Come Dancing.