Programme Analysis: A Cook On The Wild Side W/E 06/04/97

Channel 4’s A Cook On The Wild Side, the slightly wacky cookery show following the endearing Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall as he munches his way through the English countryside, was watched by a consolidated audience of 1.861 million people on Thursday 3 April, giving it a TVR of 3. It was, perhaps predictably, beaten hands down by the long-established and much more conservative Food And Drink programme on the previous Tuesday which pulled in 4.242m or 8 TVRs.

Ads which ran in the centre-break of the C4 show were Fiesta (two spots),Vision Express, Black & Decker, Natwest, Everest Windows and Centrum vitamins, suggesting that the buyers responsible were looking to target especially ABC1 25-34 year old males. These buyers will, therefore, be disappointed with the fact that among adults watching, the category with the smallest audience was among Men with a TVR of 3. This is compared to Adults (4 TVRs), Women (5 TVRs) and Housewives (5 TVRs). This may, however, be due more to the fact that the BBC2 was screening Top Gear at the same time as A Cook On The Wild Side, rather than a male aversion to cookery programmes.

The high male audience for Food And Drink bears this out, equalling Women with a TVR of 9 and lagging just one rating behind Housewives. The BBC2 show faced no real opposition to its target audience from its C4 rival at the time, which was Brookside.

In terms of audience according to region, the Yorkshire area appears to be the one most keen on cookery programmes, with the highest audience for both Food And Drink (10 TVRs) and A Cook On The Wild Side (4 TVRs). Both programmes were also well received in the South South-East area. The biggest difference in audience between the two programmes was in the South West, where the BBC2 show outshone Fearnley-Whittingstall’s by 9 ratings (the cooking of wood lice was obviously a step too far for Devon viewers). Food And Drink‘s worst performance was in Ulster, where it had the same audience as A Cook On The Wild Side.

Overall, Food And Drink showed much more regional variations in viewing, varying from 3 to 10 TVRs, than A Cook On The Wild Side, which had 3 TVRs in most regions.

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