TV Viewing Round-Up – October 2001
Programmes As the football season got into it’s swing, all eyes were on ITV1’s The Premiership to see whether it could avoid relegation. The Saturday evening prime time football show made the top three sports programmes in terms of audience size for three out of the four weeks in October. However, audiences hovered around the 4.5m mark- a respectable size in some slots, but not plum family viewing time on a populist commercial channel. By the end of the month ITV gave in and announced that the programme would move to a later evening slot (see ITV Relegates Premiership) and Saturday nights would return to more familiar territory- the new series of Blind Date.
The UK’s love affair with all things interior continued to deliver for the BBC during the month. Factual programming saw BBC1’s The Antiques Roadshow and Changing Rooms achieve audiences of over 9 million. However, the great outdoors, or rather the great underwater, in the form of hit nature series Blue Planet continued a succesful run into October. Audiences were not as large as the 8 million plus seen at the start of the series, but the plucky penguins and wobbling walruses still made it into the top 20 programmes for the channel for most of the month, with viewing between 6.5 and 7.5 million. With the series over, the Beeb will be looking to Walking With Dinosaurs follow up Walking With Beasts to deliver the nature viewing vote.
Viewing
It was a month of heavy losses for ITV1, which saw its average hours and minutes viewing drop nearly 20% in a year on year analysis. With 6 hours and 16 minutes, it was over an hour behind BBC1. With the exception of BBC2, all the terrestrial channels saw year on year losses in this respect, while Other channels saw a 12.6% increase, to 5 hours 12 minutes.
The month saw more evidence of ITV’s difficulties in winning audiences. Overall, ITV1’s year on year drop of close to 5 percentage points left it trailing BBC1, with 24.8% of audience, compared to the non-commercial channel’s 28%.
| Month | BBC1 | BBC2 | ITV | C4/S4C | Channel 5 | Others |
| Oct-2001 | 7:25 | 2:45 | 6:16 | 2:26 | 1:34 | 5:12 |
| Oct-2000 | 7:28 | 2:42 | 7:48 | 2:32 | 1:35 | 4:37 |
| % Change | -0.7 | 1.9 | -19.6 | -3.9 | -1.0 | 12.6 |
| Month | BBC1 | BBC2 | ITV | C4/S4C | Channel 5 | Others |
| Oct-2001 | 28.0 | 10.8 | 24.8 | 9.6 | 6.2 | 20.6 |
| Oct-2000 | 27.0 | 10.2 | 29.6 | 9.6 | 6.0 | 17.5 |
| % Point Change | 1.0 | 0.6 | -4.8 | 0.0 | 0.2 | 3.1 |
ITV1’s share by franchise area saw its losses spread across the board, although its worst hit area was Ulster, where share of viewing fell 8 percentage points year on year. This was the area where Channel 4 lost most- 1.3 percentage points, although most other areas also slipped for the channel during October.
The BBC channels saw increases in most cases, as did Other channels, where Ulster was the area for biggest growth- an increase of 8.5 percentage points year on year taking it to just under a 30% share.
| 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) | 28.3 | 1.6 | 10.9 | 0.4 | 21.1 | -5.9 | 10.4 | 0.9 | 6.8 | 0.1 | 22.5 | 3.0 |
| Midlands (Central) | 27.0 | 0.6 | 10.3 | -0.4 | 24.5 | -5.1 | 9.0 | -0.5 | 8.4 | 0.0 | 20.9 | 5.4 |
| North West (Granada) | 26.5 | 2.2 | 10.8 | 1.5 | 25.7 | -4.3 | 8.6 | -0.2 | 6.2 | -0.1 | 22.0 | 0.7 |
| Yorkshire | 26.7 | 0.9 | 10.6 | 0.4 | 26.9 | -5.6 | 9.4 | -1.1 | 5.8 | -0.3 | 20.7 | 5.9 |
| Central/North Scotland | 26.0 | 1.9 | 9.9 | 1.0 | 23.9 | -5.5 | 9.6 | -0.6 | 7.6 | -0.1 | 23.0 | 3.3 |
| Wales & West (HTV) | 30.4 | 0.7 | 10.5 | -0.6 | 22.1 | -5.2 | 7.5 | -0.9 | 4.9 | 0.4 | 24.7 | 5.6 |
| South & South East & Channel Islands | 30.1 | 2.4 | 12.6 | 0.6 | 25.0 | -5.9 | 10.3 | -0.6 | 2.2 | 0.5 | 19.7 | 2.9 |
| North East (Tyne Tees) | 26.4 | 2.4 | 10.4 | 1.6 | 25.5 | -5.4 | 10.1 | 0.8 | 7.5 | 0.6 | 20.0 | -0.1 |
| East (Anglia TV) | 27.8 | 0.3 | 10.2 | 0.0 | 24.1 | -5.5 | 9.4 | -0.2 | 4.3 | 0.7 | 24.3 | 4.8 |
| South West (West Country) | 33.7 | 1.6 | 13.3 | 0.8 | 26.3 | -4.1 | 11.4 | 0.1 | 2.7 | -0.3 | 12.5 | 1.8 |
| Ulster (UTV) | 23.9 | 2.0 | 7.9 | -1.2 | 27.3 | -8.0 | 7.6 | -1.3 | 3.8 | -0.2 | 29.4 | 8.5 |
| Border | 24.9 | 0.5 | 10.0 | -1.0 | 32.2 | -1.2 | 10.2 | 0.2 | 3.3 | 0.1 | 19.3 | 1.3 |
Ratings
Network ratings at ITV1 for all individuals saw a year on year increase of 8.8, which took them to 11.8, a little ahead of BBC1’s 11.1. However, across all other categories, ITV1 saw year on year falls, especially in Housewives with Children and ABC1 Adults, which both dropped 4.6.
Channel 4 saw loss of 13.5 year on year in ratings for individuals, dropping to 3.5.
| Station | Day | Individuals | YoY Ch | Adults | YoY Ch | Men | YoY Ch | Women | YoY Ch | Hwives | YoY Ch | Hswvs/Ch | YoY Ch | ABC1 Adults | YoY Ch |
| BBC1 | Mon-Sun | 11.1 | -0.2 | 12.4 | 0.0 | 10.9 | 0.0 | 13.7 | -0.2 | 14.4 | -0.1 | 13.0 | -0.8 | 12.5 | -0.8 |
| BBC2 | Mon-Sun | 3.9 | 0.4 | 4.4 | 0.5 | 4.8 | 0.7 | 4.1 | 0.3 | 4.8 | 0.5 | 3.6 | 0.6 | 4.8 | 0.6 |
| ITV | Mon-Sun | 11.8 | 8.8 | 13.2 | -4.0 | 11.8 | -3.6 | 14.5 | -4.4 | 15.2 | -4.5 | 12.4 | -4.6 | 11.3 | -4.6 |
| Channel 4 | Mon-Sun | 3.5 | -13.5 | 3.9 | 0.1 | 3.6 | 0.0 | 4.2 | 0.2 | 4.5 | 0.2 | 4.2 | 0.1 | 4.1 | 0.1 |
| Channel 5 | Mon-Sun | 2.8 | -0.1 | 3.1 | -0.1 | 3.2 | -0.3 | 3.1 | 0.2 | 3.6 | 0.1 | 2.8 | -0.2 | 2.8 | -0.2 |
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