Feature: Playing The Ratings Game
ITV’s director of channels, David Liddiment, admitted at the launch of ITV1’s winter schedule in November that BBC1’s recent ratings successes were posing a threat to the nation’s “most popular channel.” – Just over a month later BARB figures for 2001 showed that for the first time in over 40 years BBC1 had beaten ITV1 in the annual ratings war, snatching a 26.8% all hours share of viewing, compared with a 26.7% all hours share for ITV1.
Terrestrial TV viewing is on the decline, but analysis of BARB figures for 2001 shows that on the whole, in terms of the percentage point change in viewing share, BBC1 fared better than ITV1 over the course of the year (see below).
BBC1’s ratings success during 2001 was largely due to director general Greg Dyke, who ordered a new look for the channel just over a year ago. Dyke’s decision to move the news to 10pm, relegate Panorama to Sunday’s and temporally sideline arts programming freed up BBC1’s schedule, making way for more popular drama and landmark factual programmes.
The introduction of a fourth weekly episode of EastEnders, which regularly draws over 11 million, was a major success for BBC1 and drama such as Dalziel and Pascoe and Linda Green, which pulled in between 5 and 7 million viewers, helped BBC1 to increase its all hours share of viewing. The BBC’s commitment to big budget factual programming also paid off with the success of Blue Planet, which drew around 8 million at the start of the series, being followed up with Walking With Dinosaurs and Walking With Beasts, both of which attracted in excess of 6 million viewers (based on the highest rated single weekly episode).
The return of live international football to BBC1 also gave it an advantage over ITV1 in 2001. England’s 5-1 defeat over Germany was the most watched sports event of the year with 11.64 million viewers and England’s World Cup qualifier against Greece attracted 10.42 million.
ITV1, which has been burdened by the advertising downturn and the financial cost of ITV Digital, fared less well over the course of 2001. The high-profile failure of Survivor, which flopped with an audience some 3 million short of its expected 10 million, knocked a hole in ITV’s summer schedule. The decision to bring football to the heart of Saturday evening prime-time viewing also caused ITV1 to loose ground against BBC1 in terms of its all hours share, with audiences for The Premiership hovering around the 4.5 million mark, well short of the 8 million usually attracted by the likes of Blind Date and Stars in their Eyes. ITV1’s Shafted and Cold Feet also fell short of expectations and Richard and Judy’s move to Channel 4 dented ITV1’s all hours viewing share for 2001.
However, despite the poor performance of some of its programmes, particularly the daytime shows, ITV1 still wins the peak time ratings battle, commanding a greater share of peak time viewing than BBC1. David Liddiment is critical of BBC1 for being too intent on winning ratings and remains adamant that he is: “Not about to surrender ITV1’s position as Britain’s most popular channel.”
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