TV Viewing Round Up – February 2000
Programmes The BBC would call it brand extension, others would say it’s scraping the barrel for all it’s worth. Whatever you want to call it When Changing Rooms Met Ground Force certainly proved popular with the viewing public, with an audience of 10.56 million tuning in to the one-off programme.
The fifteenth anniversary celebrations of Eastenders, which featured a host of programmes, helped to pull big audiences for BBC1. Auntie’s Eastenders Birthday Bloomers took in 7.2 million viewers, while Eastenders Family Album, shown the following day, attracted 7.28 million. A Question of Eastenders proved to be the most popular of the special programmes, attracting 8.91 million viewers. The actual fifteenth anniversary episode of Eastenders achieved a respectable audience of 12.91 million.
Programmes that did well during the month of February include: Poirot with an audience 8.93 million; the terrestrial premiere of the Sylvester Stallone film Daylight which had 8.26 million people tuning in; Deadly Snakes With Steve Irwin watched by 8.17 million people and the first episode of Monarch of the Glen, which opened with an audience of 8.38 million.
Viewing There appears to be no let up in the growth of viewing for Channel 5 and it continues to outperform other stations in its year on year hours and minutes comparisons. Channel 5 improved its average weekly minutes by 27.6% on February 1999, with people watching the station for an average of one hour and thirty seven minutes.
Biggest drop goes to market leader ITV, with the station falling 6.3% on February 1999’s total to an average of eight hours and eight minutes.
Hours & Minutes
| Month | BBC1 | BBC2 | ITV | C4/S4C | Channel 5 | Others |
| Feb-2000 | 7:28 | 2:57 | 8:08 | 2:54 | 1:37 | 4:09 |
| Feb-1999 | 7:42 | 2:52 | 8:41 | 2:52 | 1:16 | 3:34 |
| % Change | -3.0 | 2.9 | -6.3 | 1.2 | 27.6 | 16.4 |
Viewing for non-terrestrial stations (Others) and Channel 5 recorded the most significant increases in year on year viewing share totals. Others improved by 1.95 percentage points, while Channel 5 increased viewing share by 1.24 percentage points.
ITV was again the biggest loser this month, falling by 2.23 points on last year’s figures.
Viewing Share
| Month | BBC1 | BBC2 | ITV | C4/S4C | Channel 5 | Others |
| Feb-2000 | 27.44 | 10.84 | 29.89 | 10.68 | 5.91 | 15.24 |
| Feb-1999 | 28.52 | 10.70 | 32.12 | 10.70 | 4.67 | 13.29 |
| % Point Change | -1.08 | 0.14 | -2.23 | -0.02 | 1.24 | 1.95 |
Channel 5 is the only station not to record a fall in viewing share by franchise in any region. Channel 5’s best share comes in the Granada television region, standing now at 6.1%, up 1.8% points on last year.
The best year on year increase goes to Others, which increases by 4.1% points in the Border region, to now stand at 13.5%.
Share by Franchise Area
| Franchise Area | BBC1 | YoY Point Ch | BBC2 | YoY Point Ch | ITV | YoY Point Ch | C4/S4C | YoY Point Ch | Channel 5 | YoY Point Ch | Others | YoY Point Ch |
| London (Wkdy & Wknd) | 27.7 | -1.3 | 11.3 | 0.2 | 25.6 | -3.0 | 10.6 | 0.2 | 6.6 | 1.7 | 18.3 | 2.3 |
| Midlands (Central) | 26.0 | -1.3 | 10.7 | 0.4 | 28.6 | -2.6 | 9.9 | 0.0 | 7.9 | 1.0 | 16.9 | 2.4 |
| North West (Granada) | 26.1 | -0.4 | 10.1 | 0.2 | 31.2 | -2.9 | 9.9 | -0.5 | 6.1 | 1.8 | 16.6 | 1.8 |
| Yorkshire | 27.7 | -0.3 | 10.7 | 0.3 | 32.3 | -1.2 | 11.0 | 0.1 | 6.7 | 1.3 | 11.6 | -0.3 |
| Central/North Scotland | 24.8 | -1.9 | 9.2 | -0.2 | 28.6 | -1.8 | 11.6 | 0.1 | 7.6 | 1.3 | 18.2 | 2.4 |
| Wales & West (HTV) | 31.2 | -0.4 | 11.3 | 0.1 | 29.3 | -1.4 | 10.0 | 0.4 | 4.1 | 0.0 | 14.0 | 1.2 |
| South & South East & Channel Islands | 28.5 | -1.4 | 12.4 | 0.1 | 32.5 | -0.6 | 11.8 | -0.1 | 1.5 | 0.6 | 13.3 | 1.4 |
| North East (Tyne Tees) | 26.5 | -0.9 | 10.1 | 0.6 | 31.0 | -1.6 | 9.6 | -1.3 | 6.5 | 1.2 | 16.4 | 2.2 |
| East (Anglia TV) | 27.9 | -2.1 | 11.3 | 0.8 | 30.4 | -2.1 | 10.6 | 0.7 | 3.5 | 1.1 | 16.4 | 1.8 |
| South West (West Country) | 33.4 | 0.1 | 13.9 | 0.6 | 29.8 | -1.5 | 12.6 | 0.3 | 3.5 | 1.3 | 6.7 | -0.9 |
| Ulster (UTV) | 23.9 | 0.4 | 8.9 | -0.1 | 33.7 | -4.6 | 9.9 | -0.4 | 3.9 | 1.0 | 19.6 | 3.6 |
| Border | 28.2 | -0.4 | 11.0 | 1.3 | 32.9 | -5.3 | 11.3 | -0.6 | 3.1 | 1.0 | 13.5 | 4.1 |
Ratings February was a good month for Channel 5 with all audiences recording year on year rating increases, with Men increasing the most (up 1.4 points). Channel 4 also enjoyed no decline in ratings across the audience categories.
Network ratings for each of the terrestrial stations between 8pm and 11pm time period remain consistent, with only three audiences showing a plus or minus increase greater than one point.
Network Ratings – 8pm to 11pm
| Station | Day | Adults | YoY Ch | Men | YoY Ch | Women | YoY Ch | Hwives | YoY Ch | Hswvs/Ch | YoY Ch | ABC1 Adults | YoY Ch |
| BBC1 | Mon-Sun | 12.6 | -0.5 | 10.8 | -0.6 | 14.3 | -0.4 | 14.6 | -0.5 | 14.5 | -0.3 | 12.5 | -0.5 |
| BBC2 | Mon-Sun | 4.9 | 0.2 | 4.9 | 0.0 | 4.8 | 0.2 | 5.4 | 0.3 | 3.9 | -0.3 | 5.5 | 0.3 |
| ITV | Mon-Sun | 15.9 | -0.6 | 13.8 | -0.8 | 17.8 | -0.5 | 18.5 | -0.5 | 15.2 | -1.6 | 13.2 | -1.3 |
| C4 | Mon-Sun | 4.4 | 0.0 | 4.3 | 0.0 | 4.6 | 0.2 | 5.0 | 0.1 | 4.8 | 0.4 | 4.6 | 0.2 |
| Channel 5 | Mon-Sun | 3.4 | 0.9 | 3.8 | 1.4 | 3.0 | 0.4 | 3.6 | 0.8 | 3.0 | 0.8 | 2.5 | 0.7 |
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