TV Viewing Round-Up – November 2001
Programmes November is traditionally the month when the commercial stations take the largest amount of television revenue. Usually this means they have top programmes on show to attract viewers, however, the highest rated programmes shown during November were down on November 2000.
Traditional ratings winners like Coronation Street and Heartbeat saw falls in viewing by as much as three million against the same week in November 2000. Coronation Street‘s highest viewing figure for November 2001 was the edition shown on Sunday 25 November, which had an audience of 15.35 million, slightly down on the equivalent 2001 show. Heartbeat‘s highest November viewing figure was the 18 November edition, which had an audience of 11.79 million.
ITV’s decision to show Cold Feet twice a week had mixed results. The Sunday editions comfortably attained audience figures of around 9 million, while the majority of the Monday episode achieved between 7 and 8 million. The only Monday episode to get a viewing figure to match the previous day’s was the final episode, which was watched by 8.95 million.
Programmes that did well this month include: Bond film The World Is Not Enough, watched by 9.8 million people; Stars In Their Eyes: Coronation Street Special, watched by 10.56 million people; The Royal Variety Performance, watched by 11.55 million people and Judge John Deed, watched by 9.43 million.
Viewing
November saw a year on year drop in viewing hours and minutes across all the terrestrial channels, but ITV1 continued in the unfortunate pattern of recent times by bearing the brunt of the losses, with a 17.3% decrease in hours and minutes taking it below both the 7 hours mark and the total of rival BBC1’s. Other, non-terrestrial channels continued to gather strength year on year, increasing viewing hours and minutes by 10% for November.
Viewing share told a similarly grim tale for ITV1, where a 4.1 percentage point drop to 25.6% share saw it beaten by BBC1, which saw a modest increase year on year to reach 27.4%. Channel 4 also saw a very small year on year drop, but remained tantalisingly just below the 10% during November, while Channel 5 inched up closer to a 6% share.
| Month | BBC1 | BBC2 | ITV | C4/S4C | Channel 5 | Others |
| Nov-2001 | 7:15 | 2:55 | 6:46 | 2:35 | 1:35 | 5:12 |
| Nov-2000 | 7:18 | 2:56 | 8:11 | 2:43 | 1:35 | 4:51 |
| % Change | -0.7 | -0.6 | -17.3 | -4.9 | 0.0 | 10.3 |
| Month | BBC1 | BBC2 | ITV | C4/S4C | Channel 5 | Others |
| Nov-2001 | 27.4 | 11.0 | 25.6 | 9.8 | 5.9 | 20.2 |
| Nov-2000 | 26.5 | 10.6 | 29.7 | 9.9 | 5.7 | 17.6 |
| % Point Change | 0.9 | 0.4 | -4.1 | -0.1 | 0.2 | 2.6 |
ITV1’s year on year viewing share losses were evident across the ITV franchise areas, but were particularly seen in Ulster, where share fell 6 percentage points, and in both the Yorkshire and South, South-East and Channel Islands regions, where share dropped 5.7 percentage points compared to November 2000.
Conversely, the non-terrestrial channels saw their best increase in the Ulster region, where a year on year increase of 7.5 percentage points took share to 27.8%.
| 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) | 27.5 | 0.3 | 11.5 | 0.7 | 22.8 | -3.1 | 10.5 | 0.8 | 6.5 | 0.3 | 21.2 | 1.0 |
| Midlands (Central) | 25.3 | -0.2 | 10.3 | -0.4 | 25.6 | -5.2 | 8.9 | 0.0 | 8.1 | 0.4 | 21.8 | 5.3 |
| North West (Granada) | 26.1 | 0.6 | 10.5 | 0.6 | 25.8 | -3.9 | 9.0 | 0.0 | 6.3 | 0.7 | 22.3 | 1.9 |
| Yorkshire | 26.9 | 1.1 | 10.4 | -0.1 | 26.9 | -5.7 | 9.9 | -0.9 | 6.0 | -0.2 | 19.8 | 5.7 |
| Central/North Scotland | 25.2 | 0.2 | 10.6 | 1.2 | 24.3 | -4.9 | 10.1 | -0.2 | 7.0 | 0.1 | 22.9 | 3.6 |
| Wales & West (HTV) | 29.9 | -0.1 | 10.8 | -0.4 | 23.7 | -3.5 | 7.7 | -0.9 | 4.7 | 0.5 | 23.2 | 4.4 |
| South & South East & Channel Islands | 29.7 | 2.3 | 13.0 | 0.7 | 26.0 | -5.7 | 10.4 | -0.6 | 2.0 | 0.6 | 18.8 | 2.6 |
| North East (Tyne Tees) | 25.9 | 2.1 | 10.6 | 1.6 | 26.9 | -3.6 | 10.0 | 0.7 | 7.4 | 1.2 | 19.2 | -2.1 |
| East (Anglia TV) | 27.3 | 0.2 | 11.1 | 0.5 | 24.5 | -5.5 | 9.4 | -0.5 | 4.4 | 0.7 | 23.3 | 4.7 |
| South West (West Country) | 33.0 | 1.4 | 13.4 | 0.2 | 27.3 | -4.0 | 11.9 | 0.9 | 3.1 | 0.1 | 11.4 | 1.5 |
| Ulster (UTV) | 22.7 | -0.5 | 9.2 | -0.1 | 28.2 | -6.0 | 8.2 | -1.0 | 3.9 | 0.0 | 27.8 | 7.5 |
| Border | 24.5 | 0.1 | 10.6 | 0.3 | 32.7 | -2.1 | 9.7 | -0.6 | 3.3 | -0.2 | 19.2 | 2.5 |
Ratings
All the commercial terrestrial channels saw year on year falls in TV ratings across all categories during November, with the only exception being Channel 4’s Men category, which remained at 4. ITV1’s heaviest losses were in Housewives and Children and ABC1 Adults, which both dropped 4.4 year on year to 13 and 11.6 respectively.
| Station | Day | Individuals | YoY Ch | Adults | YoY Ch | Men | YoY Ch | Women | YoY Ch | Hwives | YoY Ch | Hswvs/Ch | YoY Ch | ABC1 Adults | YoY Ch |
| BBC1 | Mon-Sun | 11.5 | 0.6 | 12.7 | 0.6 | 11.1 | 0.3 | 14.2 | 0.9 | 14.9 | 0.9 | 12.9 | 0.4 | 12.7 | 0.4 |
| BBC2 | Mon-Sun | 4.1 | 0.4 | 4.6 | 0.4 | 5.0 | 0.5 | 4.3 | 0.4 | 5.0 | 0.4 | 3.5 | 0.3 | 5.1 | 0.3 |
| ITV | Mon-Sun | 12.4 | -3.4 | 13.9 | -3.7 | 11.9 | -3.6 | 15.6 | -3.9 | 16.2 | -4.1 | 13.0 | -4.4 | 11.6 | -4.4 |
| Channel 4 | Mon-Sun | 3.6 | -0.3 | 4.1 | -0.2 | 4.0 | 0.0 | 4.1 | -0.5 | 4.6 | -0.3 | 4.4 | -0.3 | 4.2 | -0.3 |
| Channel 5 | Mon-Sun | 2.6 | -0.2 | 2.9 | -0.2 | 3.1 | -0.3 | 2.7 | -0.2 | 3.3 | -0.1 | 2.5 | -0.2 | 2.5 | -0.2 |
Subscribers can access the Television database by selecting “Television” from the drop-down box at the top of this page.