Ratings Review: BARB Week Ending 02 September 2007 

12 September 2007 tbs.pm/77

The first set of ratings for the new Autumn season have been released by BARB and it makes for interesting reading.

Sky One, which was once the top rating satellite/cable/digital channel,is now an also ran with a mere 0.9 share /13.9 weekly reach, which puts it way behind the leaders in the digital channel race. Sky Two mananges only 0.4 / 6.7, whilst Sky Three, which benefits from having Freeview capacity manages a more respectable 0.8 / 19.3. In other words, more people see Sky Three for at least 3 consecutive minutes a week, than see Sky One. Now, the continued dispute over carriage on Virgin Media is not helping, but just think, how much better would Sky One’s numbers be if it was carried on Freeview? There would be a lot of rights issues to sort out, but the increase in viewing figures for Sky One would be worth any hassle over rights for programmes. Just look at E4 and Film 4 and see how much better both stations have done in the ratings since becoming Freeview channels rather than subscription only.

On a related point, the top 10s of the same three channels bear investigation too. Sky One’s is very notable, all 10 slots are held by The Simpsons, but all only scoring ratings of around 300-450 thousand viewers. For Sky Two, the picture is similar, with Stargate Atlantis holding 7 of the top 10 posts, and ratings in the top 10 ranging from 89-125 thousand viewers. Sky Three though is much better with 5 different shows making up the top 10, although one show, Road Wars, takes the top 4 spots. Top 10 ratings range from 200-378 thousand viewers, which looks much healthier. Sky’s problem is that there are far more shows on other channels with far better ratings. In this week alone, on digital channels, 4 programmes scored over 1 million viewers, with a fifth less than 20,000 viewers away from that magic mark. The Top 10 shows on BBC3 all scored more viewers than Sky One’s highest rating show, as did the entire ITV2 top 10. In fact 10 channels, had one show or more on their channel that rated higher than Sky One’s top rating show.

If I were James Murdoch, I’d be looking very seriously at my strategy for Sky One, Sky Two and Sky Three, and I would be looking to see just what could be done to put some spark back into Sky One, although I suspect they already know what needs to be done, they perhaps just don’t want to do it.

Moving on, I’ll once again highligh some of the worst performing channels on digital TV today, and yet again, ask the same question that I ask every time I see these figures, what is it that these channels are doing that is so useful to the audience, and if they are doing something truly useful, why the bad figures?

In no particular order, XLeague.TV – just 88,000 viewers weekly share. The Baby Channel; a mere 38,000 viewers. Simply TV, looking somewhat pathetic with just 20,000 viewers this week. Rockworld TV,only 96,000 viewers. Overseas Property Channel with a poor 85,000 viewers. MusFlash with a paltry 63,000 viewers, The Community Channel, which despite having Freeview carriage, gets just 85,000 viewers. Sky Travel Shop, just 88,000 viewers. Where is the demand for what these channels are providing? The viewing figures don’t seem to suggest there is much demand there.

Mind you, the following channels can hardly claim any stellar degree of success either. Wedding TV – 139,000 and its +1 channel, 104,000. TWC Fight, just 210,000. The Travel Channel – 260,000 andn its +1 channel, 166,000. Setanta Golf – 232,000. Real Estate TV – 191,000. Performance Channel – 183,000. MUTV – 113,000. Life One – 108,000. Legal TV – 152,000. Hollywood TV – 183,000. The Golf Channel – 195,000. Fox News Channel – 209,000. Fashion TV – 219,000. The Business Channel – 155,000. Sky Arts – 153,000. These ratings just aren’t good, and you have to wonder, on all of the channels I’ve mentioned, just how many of their shows are ‘zero-rated’, meaning they have less than 1,000 viewers. Even a channel like Motors TV, whose 10th best ranking programme has just 7,000 viewers. How many of their shows, get zero rated?

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