TV Viewing Summary w/e 28/03/99

BARB viewing data show that the nation has turned to the BBC for information about the war in Kosovo. When news broke of NATO’s decision to begin air strikes, the main terrestrial stations beefed up their war coverage.

BBC1 stole a march on ITV by dropping its scheduled 7 o’clock programme and replacing it with a special news report. The channel which has always prided itself as being the place the nation turns to at moments of great public significance, pulled in 5.83 million viewers for its first in depth bulletin.

ITV, which has reworked its entire output of news coverage, with the discarding of News at Ten, saw an increase in audience figures for ITV Nightly News, up to 4.99 million from 2.44 million the previous day. This is small consolation for the Network however, as data show that the average combined viewing figures for both news programme are falling.

For the first week of ITV’s new schedule starting 8 March, the combined average viewing audience for the two news programmes was 10.36 million. This then fell to 9.14 million for the week commencing 15 March, with the Kosovo crisis pushing figures up to a combined 9.7 million for the week beginning 22 March.

Viewing Figures For Weekday News Programmes w/e 28/03/99

Source: BARB

Meanwhile Channel 4 News, which broadcasts between 7pm and 7.50pm, pulled in 917,000 viewers, up from 767,000 on 23 March. As NATO’s air strikes continued, viewing figures for the programme steadily rose, so that by 25 and 26 March viewing had broken the million mark. Apart from the day of the first NATO attacks, Channel 5’s news coverage did not achieve any significant increases in its viewing audience.

Reviewer: Simon Wright