TV Viewing Round Up – August 2000
Programmes It’s impossible to talk about August’s top programmes without, once again, mentioning Big Brother. The most watched edition this month was, unsurprisingly, the fallout from ‘Nasty’ Nick Bateman’s eviction. The whole country, well, 6.87 million of it, were on tenterhooks wanting as Craig discovered Nick’s scheming.
There wasn’t much on offer in the way new programming; only The People Versus and Down To Earth bare mentioning. The former is a new quiz show from the makers of Who Wants To Be Millionaire?, which started off with a respectable 9.83 million viewers; Down To Earth, BBC1’s new drama series starring Pauline Quirke and Warren Clarke, opened with 9.97 million viewers
Viewing The huge success of Big Brother has meant that Channel 4’s average hours and minutes has again risen significantly, up 6.4% on August 1999’s figures. Possibly as a direct consequence Channel 5 has for the first time since its launch recorded a year on year increase below nine percent. During August 2000 Channel 5 was viewed on average for one hour and twenty-one minutes, up 1.3% on August 1999.
ITV suffered the worst yearly fall in average hours and minutes total of any station. Viewing for the channel dropped 11.1% on last year’s figures.
| Month | BBC1 | BBC2 | ITV | C4/S4C | Channel 5 | Others |
| Aug-2000 | 5:59 | 2:31 | 6:13 | 2:45 | 1:21 | 4:17 |
| Aug-1999 | 6:43 | 2:40 | 7:00 | 2:35 | 1:20 | 3:43 |
| % Change | -10.9 | -5.6 | -11.1 | 6.4 | 1.3 | 15.2 |
August was another good month for Channel 4 in terms of viewing share, with the channel improving by 1.07 percentage points year on year to stand at 11.9%.
Viewing for non-terrestrial stations (Others) once again rose as the take-up of digital continues to increase (see ITV Slips While Non-Terrestrials Improve In Digital Television Homes). Compared to August 1999, Others viewing share rose by 2.08 percentage points to stand at 17.5%
| Month | BBC1 | BBC2 | ITV | C4/S4C | Channel 5 | Others |
| Aug-2000 | 25.90 | 10.90 | 26.90 | 11.90 | 5.90 | 17.50 |
| Aug-1999 | 28.00 | 11.17 | 29.15 | 10.83 | 5.43 | 15.42 |
| % Point Change | -2.10 | -0.27 | -2.25 | 1.07 | 0.47 | 2.08 |
With the exception of the Border franchise area, Channel 4 saw yearly increases in viewing share across all ITV regions. Yorkshire and Ulster jointly had the highest year on year increase, up 2.3 percentage points on August 1999.
The big two of ITV and BBC1 suffered badly this month, with viewers lured away by a combination of incredibly popular Big Brother and the take-up of digital. Both stations recorded yearly viewing share drops across all ITV regions, the most being Ulster region ITV and Border for BBC (down 5.2 and 5.6 percentage points respectively).
| Franchise Area | BBC1 | YoY Point Ch | BBC2 | YoY Point Ch | ITV | YoY Point Ch | C4/S4C | YoY Point Ch | Channel 5 | YoY Point Ch | Others | YoY Point Ch |
| London (Wkdy & Wknd) | 26.1 | -1.9 | 11.3 | -0.7 | 23.7 | -1.9 | 12.4 | 2.1 | 6.6 | 1.1 | 19.9 | 1.4 |
| Midlands (Central) | 25.1 | -0.9 | 10.4 | -0.3 | 26.2 | -1.2 | 12.3 | 1.4 | 7.7 | 0.5 | 18.4 | 0.7 |
| North West (Granada) | 23.8 | -2.5 | 10.2 | -0.5 | 27.7 | -3.1 | 11.3 | 0.6 | 6.1 | 0.9 | 21.0 | 4.8 |
| Yorkshire | 24.9 | -3.0 | 10.7 | 0.2 | 29.5 | -2.0 | 13.7 | 2.3 | 6.8 | -0.5 | 14.3 | 2.8 |
| Central/North Scotland | 23.4 | -3.3 | 11.2 | -0.4 | 25.9 | -1.8 | 10.3 | 0.2 | 7.7 | 0.4 | 21.5 | 4.9 |
| Wales & West (HTV) | 28.1 | -3.3 | 10.8 | -0.3 | 26.0 | -2.6 | 11.3 | 0.8 | 4.4 | 0.6 | 19.4 | 4.8 |
| South & South East & Channel Islands | 26.2 | -3.7 | 12.1 | 0.0 | 27.6 | -4.4 | 12.7 | 1.7 | 1.5 | 0.3 | 19.8 | 6.0 |
| North East (Tyne Tees) | 24.4 | -2.1 | 10.5 | -0.5 | 26.6 | -1.6 | 10.8 | 0.6 | 7.1 | 0.9 | 20.7 | 2.7 |
| East (Anglia TV) | 27.3 | -1.6 | 10.0 | -1.7 | 27.9 | -2.0 | 12.1 | 2.0 | 3.3 | 0.3 | 19.4 | 3.0 |
| South West (West Country) | 32.2 | -1.2 | 12.1 | -1.3 | 27.1 | -4.0 | 14.4 | 1.6 | 2.9 | 0.0 | 11.3 | 4.9 |
| Ulster (UTV) | 23.8 | -0.4 | 8.9 | -0.2 | 29.3 | -5.2 | 11.0 | 2.3 | 4.1 | 0.0 | 22.9 | 3.4 |
| Border | 23.1 | -5.6 | 12.2 | 1.8 | 34.2 | -1.5 | 10.2 | -0.4 | 2.8 | -0.3 | 17.7 | 6.2 |
Ratings Channel 4 and 5 were the only terrestrial stations to increase audience peaktime ratings. Channel 4’s most improved audience category was housewives with children, up 1.7 percentage points. Channel 5’s best ratings performance came among adults, rising by one percentage point year on year.
| Station | Day | Adults | YoY Ch | Men | YoY Ch | Women | YoY Ch | Hwives | YoY Ch | Hswvs/Ch | YoY Ch | ABC1 Adults | YoY Ch |
| BBC1 | Mon-Sun | 10.3 | -1.8 | 9.1 | -1.8 | 11.5 | -1.7 | 12.0 | -1.7 | 10.9 | -1.6 | 10.1 | -1.4 |
| BBC2 | Mon-Sun | 3.8 | -0.7 | 4.0 | -0.6 | 3.5 | -0.9 | 4.1 | -0.8 | 3.0 | -0.3 | 4.1 | -0.9 |
| ITV | Mon-Sun | 12.6 | -1.0 | 10.7 | -1.4 | 14.4 | -0.6 | 15.1 | -0.7 | 10.4 | -1.6 | 10.7 | -1.2 |
| Channel 4 | Mon-Sun | 4.7 | 0.7 | 4.2 | 0.4 | 5.1 | 1.0 | 5.2 | 0.8 | 5.6 | 1.7 | 4.9 | 0.8 |
| Channel 5 | Mon-Sun | 2.8 | 1.0 | 3.0 | 0.5 | 2.7 | 0.2 | 3.1 | 0.2 | 2.4 | 0.2 | 1.9 | -0.7 |
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