TV Viewing Round Up – November 2000
Programmes If last month’s most talked about ITV programme was The National TV Awards with two special appearances courtesy of Judy Finnigan, then this month was a tie between the first ever £1m winner on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and The David Beckham Story.
Focusing on one half of the couple Britain loves to hate, The David Beckham Story had 10.55 million people tuning in to see what he was really like. Whilst the documentary had about as much depth as a Spice Girls single, he did come across as fairly likeable chap who didn’t take himself too seriously.
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire‘s first ever jackpot winner was surrounded in controversy due to the completely coincidental clash with BBC1’s final episode of One Foot In The Grave, which featured the death of Victor Mildrew. …Millionaire was watched by 14.87 million viewers, while One Foot… had an audience of 12.84 million.
The two main terrestrial channels then became imbroiled in a slanging match over whether the top rated quiz show had deliberately dumbed down its questions to ensure a millionaire winner on Victor Mildrew’s final night. Also shuffling off to the great TV land in the sky was Inspector Morse, with John Thaw’s final appearance as the Oxford detective attracting 13.7 million viewers.
Other programmes that did well this month include: the return of the award winning Cold Feet, with 9.87 million viewers; Elton John’s appearance on Parkinson, which was watched by 8.22 million people; Fat Friends, with a highest audience of 9.61 million ;and the terrestrial premieres of blockbuster films, Volcano and The Full Monty, with audiences of 9.68 and 11.08 million respectively.
Viewing There wasn’t much joy for the terrestrial stations in November with only Channel 5 recording a rise in average hours and minutes total compared to November 1999. During November 2000 Channel 5 was watched on average for one hour and thirty-five minutes, a rise of 3.3 percent.
Viewing for non-terrestrial stations (Others) rose by 28.3 percent, to stand at four hours and fifty-one minutes.
| Month | BBC1 | BBC2 | ITV | C4/S4C | Channel 5 | Others |
| Nov-2000 | 7:18 | 2:56 | 8:11 | 2:33 | 1:35 | 4:51 |
| Nov-1999 | 7:34 | 2:56 | 8:37 | 2:48 | 1:32 | 3:47 |
| % Change | -3.5 | 0.0 | -5.0 | -2.9 | 3.3 | 28.2 |
Channel 5 continues to marginally improve its share of viewing, up 0.1 percentage points on November 1999 to 5.7 percent. Others increased its share by 3.8 percentage points to stand at 17.8 percent.
With the only significant growth in television viewing coming from Others, terrestrial stations saw their viewing share fall year on year. ITV dropped the most, down 1.9 percentage points to 29.7 percent for November 2000.
| Month | BBC1 | BBC2 | ITV | C4/S4C | Channel 5 | Others |
| Nov-2000 | 26.5 | 10.6 | 29.7 | 9.9 | 5.7 | 17.6 |
| Nov-1999 | 27.8 | 10.8 | 31.6 | 10.4 | 5.6 | 13.8 |
| % Point Change | -1.3 | -0.2 | -1.9 | -0.5 | 0.1 | 3.8 |
ITV had a bad month in terms of viewing share by franchise area, with all regions recording falls. The worst affected area was Wales and West which slipped a massive 5.5 percentage points on November 1999’s figures.
| 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) | 27.2 | -0.7 | 10.8 | -0.2 | 25.9 | -0.6 | 9.7 | -0.6 | 6.2 | -0.2 | 20.2 | 2.3 |
| Midlands (Central) | 25.5 | -1.3 | 10.7 | 0.4 | 30.8 | -1.0 | 8.9 | -0.6 | 7.7 | -0.2 | 16.5 | 2.9 |
| North West (Granada) | 25.5 | -1.2 | 9.9 | 0.2 | 29.7 | -3.5 | 9.0 | -0.6 | 5.6 | 0.0 | 20.4 | 5.1 |
| Yorkshire | 25.8 | -1.0 | 10.5 | 0.0 | 32.6 | -2.1 | 10.8 | 0.5 | 6.2 | -0.4 | 14.1 | 3.0 |
| Central/North Scotland | 25.0 | -0.1 | 9.4 | -0.8 | 29.2 | -0.6 | 10.3 | -1.4 | 6.9 | 0.3 | 19.3 | 2.8 |
| Wales & West (HTV) | 30.0 | -1.1 | 11.2 | -0.1 | 27.2 | -5.5 | 8.6 | -1.1 | 4.2 | 0.6 | 18.8 | 7.3 |
| South & South East & Channel Islands | 27.4 | -2.6 | 12.3 | 0.2 | 31.7 | -0.4 | 11.0 | -0.2 | 1.4 | 0.2 | 16.2 | 2.9 |
| North East (Tyne Tees) | 23.8 | -3.0 | 9.0 | -1.3 | 30.5 | -1.6 | 9.3 | -0.2 | 6.2 | 0.0 | 21.3 | 6.1 |
| East (Anglia TV) | 27.1 | -2.5 | 10.6 | -0.3 | 30.0 | -1.4 | 9.9 | -0.1 | 3.7 | 0.5 | 18.6 | 3.7 |
| South West (West Country) | 31.6 | -2.0 | 13.2 | -0.2 | 31.3 | -0.6 | 11.0 | -1.3 | 3.0 | 0.5 | 9.9 | 3.5 |
| Ulster (UTV) | 23.2 | 0.9 | 9.3 | 0.4 | 34.2 | -2.3 | 9.2 | -1.1 | 3.9 | -0.1 | 20.3 | 2.4 |
| Border | 24.4 | -3.4 | 10.3 | -0.2 | 34.8 | -2.3 | 10.3 | -1.2 | 3.5 | 0.7 | 16.7 | 6.3 |
Ratings Both BBC1 and BBC2 had a bad month ratings wise with all audiences recording falls in peaktime ratings, with BBC1’s worst affected audience being Housewives with children (down 1.1 percentage points).
Channel 5 had the best ratings performance of terrestrial stations, with none of its audiences falling year on year. Channel 5’s best audience rating came from Men, which increased 0.4 percentage points on November 1999.
| 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 | 12.1 | -0.6 | 10.8 | -0.3 | 13.3 | -0.9 | 14.0 | -0.8 | 12.5 | -1.1 | 12.4 | -0.4 |
| BBC2 | Mon-Sun | 4.2 | -0.4 | 4.5 | -0.4 | 3.9 | -0.5 | 4.6 | -0.5 | 3.2 | -0.5 | 4.9 | -0.2 |
| ITV | Mon-Sun | 17.6 | 0.1 | 15.5 | -0.2 | 19.5 | 0.2 | 20.3 | 0.4 | 17.4 | -0.8 | 15.2 | 0.6 |
| Channel 4 | Mon-Sun | 4.3 | 0.0 | 4.0 | -0.2 | 4.6 | 0.2 | 4.9 | 0.1 | 4.7 | 0.2 | 4.5 | 0.0 |
| Channel 5 | Mon-Sun | 3.1 | 0.2 | 3.4 | 0.4 | 2.9 | 0.1 | 3.4 | 0.1 | 2.7 | 0.3 | 2.2 | 0.0 |
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