Television Viewing Round-Up – November 2008

All of the five main terrestrial channels saw declines in viewing share in November, with ITV1 experiencing the largest year on year fall, of 1.0 percentage points.

BBC One saw a relatively large year on year decline of 0.9 percentage points, taking its share to 21.6%, despite its weekend rating winning show, Strictly Come Dancing.

Strictly Come Dancing and all its sequins returned to our screens with 16 celebrities determined to master a salsa and BBC One determined to rival ITV1’s X Factor show.

Strictly has averaged an impressive 9.5 million viewers per programme throughout the series, which climaxes this weekend (see X Factor v Strictly).

Meanwhile, BBC Two was down by 0.4 percentage points year on year, leaving it with an 8.3% share of viewing.

Channel 4 was down by 0.8 percentage points year on year, taking its share to 7%, while Five only dipped 0.1 percentage points year on year, leaving it with almost a 5% share of viewing.

ITV1 witnessed the largest decline, of 1.0 percentage points year on year, however, it still retains a high viewing share at 19%.

ITV1’s I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! proved to be fairly popular with viewers in November, pulling in around 9 million peak viewers per show (see I’m a Celebrity pulls in over 9m viewers).

X Factor also kept up ITV1’s viewing share in November, regularly beating its BBC One rival Strictly Come Dancing to the weekend top spot (see The X Factor stays on top).

Other channels were up 2.8 percentage points year on year, to 38.6%.

ITV1 was also down by 0.8 percentage points in digital homes, to leave its share at 18.2%.

BBC One was down by 0.6 percentage points to 20%, while BBC Two fell 0.2 percentage points to 7.3%.

Channel 4 dipped by 0.5 percentage points, taking its share to 6.3%.

However, Five recorded a slight increase in share in digital homes, up 0.2 percentage points year on year to 4.6%.

Other channels were up 1.6 percentage points in digital homes.

BARB: www.barb.co.uk