Fluctuating Audience For News At Ten

Amid increasing pressure from both the ITC and MPs’ ITV have to determine whether News at Ten should keep its 10.00pm slot or move to either an earlier or later time.

The ITV network wish to move the programme in order to make room for films and drama programmes which could run in one block, rather than be split around the news, and consequently provide ITV with a stronger schedule to compete more effectively with C4.

Viewing figures for News at Ten vary quite dramatically dependent on what is being screened before it, and what is shown on the other channels at the same time on other channels – whereas C4, and to a large extent BBC1, maintain constant figures. BARB figures for w/e 13/6 for each channels’ news programmes are as follows:

Source: BARB

News at Ten shows the most variance amongst the different channels and does appear to pick up audiences if major drama series or films precede it i.e. Monday – Peak Practice (23 TVrs), Wednesday – Steel Magnolias (21 TVRs), Friday – Stay Lucky (17 TVRs). The poor performances of Tuesday and Friday are the result of a very strong BBC1 schedule of 999 (Tues) and Crimewatch UK (Thurs) both achieving 22 TVRs.