ITV May Be Winning In Autumn’s Ratings Battle

Granada Media claims that ITV is winning the ratings battle against the BBC, which has escalated since it was announced that BBC1’s 9pm news bulletin would move to the controversial 10pm slot (see BBC To Broadcast News At Ten).

Before the autumn schedules kicked off, ITV claimed an 8.6% share point lead over the BBC. Since the new schedule began at the start of September this lead is said to have increased to 10.3%.

The key battleground, for which both BBC 1 and ITV have been bringing out the big guns, is the weekday peak-time of 7pm to 10.29pm. Before the BBC’s news was moved, ITV had an average 36.8%. Since the change, this has risen to 38%.

ITV has employed several tactics to increase its audience share during this key period. One of these has been to increase the number of episodes of Emmerdale to five per week, gaining the programme a 45% share of viewing.

As a spoiler to programming placed in the newly freed-up 9pm slot on BBC1, ITV has been showing Special News Bulletins at this time, when Granada claim that a lot of people are still “looking for their news”.

Following a summer of low confidence in ITV’s ability to deliver the audiences to justify high advertising rates, the network appears to be beginning to prove its worth again. Recent digital viewing figures (see Digital Round-Up October 2000: ITV Makes Headway Across The Board) also show ITV’s audience gains continuing, even in digital homes where the Sky platform does not carry the channel.

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