BBC4 “Happy” With 11,000 Digital Debut

The BBC has said that it is “very happy” with the launch of its digital arts channel BBC4, despite the fact that on Saturday, its first night of broadcast, it only attracted 11,000 digital viewers, according to unofficial overnights.

With a launch budget of £35m, BBC4 was given the go-ahead last year, when BBC3, a proposed entertainment channel in the E4 vein, was blocked (see Government Says No To BBC3). BBC4 controller Roly Keating said before launch that the new channel was “well placed to deliver the kind of edgy and sometimes risk-taking programming that the digital world needs.”

The risk being taken, judging from the 0.18% share of the digital market attracted by the opening night line up including a film about Salvador Dali, a Robert Hughes film on Goya and a documentary about artist Michael Landy, is that the viewing public is less than excited by the ‘TV equivalent of Radio 4″. The launch night programming was broadcast simultaneously on terrestrial BBC2 on Saturday, where it attracted around 1 million viewers.

BBC4 has said it will transmit daily from 19.00 until at least 01.00.

Today the BBC launches another digital venture- its first music radio station for over 30 years. BBC Radio 6 Music, which will be available via digital radio sets, digital satellite TVs and the internet, is to feature critically acclaimed artists from outside the mass market.

BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk

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