TV Viewing Round Up – October 2000
Programmes This was the month of the big scheduling battle between BBC1 and ITV, following the former’s decision to move the Nine O’Clock News to 10pm(see BBC To Broadcast News At Ten). Depending on your viewpoint there were winners all round, with ITV maintaining its overall peaktime lead, while BBC1 increased the audience for its later news programme.
During the week commencing 16th October BBC1 filled its schedules with a plethora of ratings winners. On Monday One Foot In The Grave and The Royle Family were watched by 11.64 and 9.93 million people respectively. This compares with ITV’s spoiler programme Who Wants To Be A Millionaire which had 10.61 million viewers between 9pm and 10pm.
On Tuesday the terrestrial network premiere of sci-fi film Men In Black gave BBC1 an audience of 10.69 million. Up against the blockbuster film was an old episode of A Touch of Frost and the second half of the Tuesday episode of The Bill (with viewing figures of 7.64 and 8.84 million respectively).
Other programmes that did well this month include National TV Awards which had 12.04 million viewers, Inspector Wexford with an audience of 9.78, the second ever television showing of Tomorrow Never Dies with 9.3 million viewers and cult quiz show The Weakest Link which had 8.27 million viewers.
Viewing Despite the revamp to its schedule BBC1 still recorded a year on year decrease in average hours and minutes during October 2000. Compared to last year’s figures the channel dropped by two point one percent to an average of seven hours and eight minutes. ITV didn’t fare any better with it average hours and minutes this month at seven hours and forty-eight minutes, down three point nine percent on last year’s figures.
Channel 5 average hours and minutes seems to be stabilising with this month’s figures rising only three point two percent (or an extra five minutes) to stand at one hour and thirty-five minutes. Thanks to the continued growth of digital viewing for non-terrestrial stations (Others) shows no signs of slowing down, this month’s total stands at four hours and seventeen minutes (a rise of fifteen point two percent year on year).
| Month | BBC1 | BBC2 | ITV | C4/S4C | Channel 5 | Others |
| Oct-2000 | 7:08 | 2:42 | 7:48 | 2:32 | 1:35 | 4:37 |
| Oct-1999 | 7:17 | 2:40 | 8:07 | 2:40 | 1:32 | 3:47 |
| % Change | -2.1 | 1.3 | -3.9 | -5.0 | 3.2 | 22.0 |
Channel 5 has, for only the forth time since it came on air, achieved a viewing share of six percent. Helped by terrestrial network premieres of films such as: Con Air; Batman & Robin; Last Man Standing as well as a Halloween themed weekend, the channel’s viewing share rose 0.1 percentage point.
With the exception of Others, the rest of the other channels lost viewing share, ITV fell the most, slipping 1.6 percentage points on 1999’s figures to 29.6 percent.
| Month | BBC1 | BBC2 | ITV | C4/S4C | Channel 5 | Others |
| Oct-2000 | 27.0 | 10.2 | 29.6 | 9.6 | 6.0 | 17.5 |
| Oct-1999 | 28.1 | 10.3 | 31.2 | 10.1 | 5.9 | 14.4 |
| % Point Change | -1.1 | -0.1 | -1.6 | -0.5 | 0.1 | 3.1 |
Franchise viewing is pretty uniform this month, with the terrestrial stations largely recording falls and Others rising. ITV did manage to record increase in two franchise areas, London and North East (up 0.2 and 1.3 percentage points respectively).
| 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) | 26.7 | -1.4 | 10.5 | -0.3 | 27.0 | 0.2 | 9.5 | -0.7 | 6.7 | 0.0 | 19.5 | 2.0 |
| Midlands (Central) | 26.4 | -0.1 | 10.7 | 1.0 | 29.6 | -1.4 | 9.5 | 0.6 | 8.4 | 0.2 | 15.5 | -0.3 |
| North West (Granada) | 24.3 | -2.6 | 9.3 | -0.4 | 30.0 | -2.6 | 8.8 | -0.8 | 6.3 | 0.4 | 21.3 | 6.0 |
| Yorkshire | 25.8 | -1.0 | 10.2 | -0.1 | 32.5 | -2.1 | 10.5 | 0.3 | 6.1 | -0.9 | 14.8 | 3.6 |
| Central/North Scotland | 24.1 | -1.2 | 8.9 | -0.8 | 29.4 | -0.2 | 10.2 | -0.7 | 7.7 | 1.3 | 19.7 | 1.5 |
| Wales & West (HTV) | 29.7 | -1.5 | 11.1 | 0.5 | 27.3 | -6.1 | 8.4 | -1.1 | 4.5 | 0.5 | 19.1 | 7.8 |
| South & South East & Channel Islands | 27.7 | -2.1 | 12.0 | 0.1 | 30.9 | -2.1 | 10.9 | 0.1 | 1.7 | 0.5 | 16.8 | 3.5 |
| North East (Tyne Tees) | 24.0 | -2.6 | 8.8 | -0.5 | 30.9 | 1.3 | 9.3 | -0.6 | 6.9 | 0.4 | 20.1 | 2.1 |
| East (Anglia TV) | 27.5 | -1.9 | 10.2 | -1.1 | 29.6 | -1.9 | 9.6 | -0.2 | 3.6 | -0.3 | 19.5 | 5.3 |
| South West (West Country) | 32.1 | -1.0 | 12.5 | 0.2 | 30.4 | -2.9 | 11.3 | -0.7 | 3.0 | 0.4 | 10.7 | 3.9 |
| Ulster (UTV) | 21.9 | -0.4 | 9.1 | 0.2 | 35.3 | -1.7 | 8.9 | -0.8 | 4.0 | 0.0 | 20.9 | 2.9 |
| Border | 24.4 | -3.4 | 11.0 | 0.4 | 33.4 | -4.3 | 10.0 | -1.1 | 3.2 | 0.2 | 18.0 | 8.2 |
Ratings Thanks to Coronation Street, Millionaire, Fat Friends and Without Motive ITV had a good month ratings-wise. All audience categories except housewives with children increased year on year for the channel, with the best performance coming amongst Housewives which went up by 1.1 percentage points.
Perversely BBC1 recorded falls in all audience categories except Housewives with children, which rose 0.6 percentage points.
| 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 | 12.4 | -0.4 | 10.9 | -0.3 | 13.9 | -0.4 | 14.5 | -0.3 | 13.8 | 0.6 | 12.7 | -0.4 |
| BBC2 | Mon-Sun | 3.9 | -0.5 | 4.1 | -0.6 | 3.8 | -0.4 | 4.3 | -0.6 | 3.0 | -0.6 | 4.4 | -0.5 |
| ITV | Mon-Sun | 17.2 | 0.8 | 15.4 | 0.6 | 18.9 | 0.9 | 19.7 | 1.1 | 17.0 | -0.5 | 14.6 | 0.6 |
| Channel 4 | Mon-Sun | 3.8 | -0.1 | 3.6 | -0.1 | 4.0 | -0.1 | 4.3 | -0.1 | 4.1 | 0.0 | 4.0 | 0 |
| Channel 5 | Mon-Sun | 3.2 | 0.2 | 3.5 | 0.5 | 2.9 | -0.1 | 3.5 | 0.1 | 3.0 | 0.6 | 2.2 | -0.1 |
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