C4 opts for PSB over ratings in its birthday week

Philip Reevell

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C4 demonstrates there's more to its output than its programmes appearing in the top 25 might suggest.

As Channel 4 celebrates its 25th birthday this week, it demonstrates there's more to its output than the C4 programmes appearing in the top 25 might suggest. These include The Paul O'Grady Show, which takes four of the top 25 slots, the highest being Friday's show at 5pm in 12th place with 2.4 million/18% share. It benefited from being preceded by Deal or No Deal at 4.15pm, which attracted 2.3 million/23% share, ranking 15th in our table.

The real C4 story is in primetime. At first glance the contrast with BBC2 is striking. BBC2's Top Gear on Sunday at 8pm had more than 6 million/23% share, making it the highest rated show in the top 25, followed at 9pm by the latest Ewan McGregor roadtrip, Long Way Down, with 3.7 million/15% share. After that, BBC2 claims a string of 2 million-plus shows - University Challenge, Nigella Express, Gardeners' World, QI, Dragons' Den and Match of the Day 2.

But C4 opted to take a different approach to primetime with a public policy initiative called Lost for Words. As part of this campaign to improve reading skills it ran a series called Last Chance Kids (pictured) which aimed to get primary school children reading. The programmes aired on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 9pm. Tuesday's show attracted 1.4 million/6% share while Wednesday and Thursday both pulled in 1.5 million/7% share.

Other programmes which formed part of the campaign included Dispatches: Why Our Children Can't Read at 8pm on Monday, which had an audience of 1.2 million/5% share, and Richard and Judy's Best Kids' Books on Thursday at 8pm which attracted 628,000 viewers/3% share.

Running a major campaign such as this across primetime carries real commercial risks - the channel's weekly primetime share dropped to 5.7% from 6.8% the previous week.

Sadly the rest of the schedule couldn't help: on Monday at 9pm, The Beckoning Silence, a follow-up to Touching the Void, had just 880,000/4% share. Jamie at Home on Tuesday at 8pm had 1.8 million/8% share followed at 8.30pm by Wild Gourmets with 1.5 million/6% share. Selling Houses Abroad at 8pm on Wednesday had 1.6 million/7% share. At 9pm on Friday, Ugly Betty had 1.8 million/8% share, not such a great score when you consider that Five's US import CSI: Miami on Tuesday at 9pm had 2.7 million/12% share.

C4's performance in primetime across the week tells its own story. C4's highest primetime share was 6.5% on Wednesday and its lowest was 4.4% on Monday night. That's a thin week by any standards - Five's weekly primetime share was 5.1%, just 0.6% behind C4.

Still, if you're thinking all this is leading up to a birthday message on the lines of "Happy Birth-day C4 - shame about the primetime drop", you'd be wrong. There's no question that Lost for Words represents a major public service broadcasting commitment that stands up well against the publicly funded output of the BBC.
Admittedly BBC1 has an extra Panorama and the excellent consumer show Rogue Traders with 4.2 million/ 19% share on Wednesday at 8.30 pm, but the combined public service commitment of BBC1 and BBC2 in primetime was overshadowed by C4. So happy birthday C4, it's good to see your heart is still in the right place.

BBC4 finds ratings gold in Hill
Lke other digital channels, BBC4 has discovered the magic key to attracting the multichannel viewer. Just as Secret Diary of a Call Girl delivered for ITV2, so now Fanny Hill has worked for BBC4, attracting 1 million/5% share when it aired on Monday at 9pm. Not only is that a massive BBC4 audience, it also beat Call Girl which this week had 890,000/6% share on Thursday at 10pm. Fanny Hill was the third highest rated digital programme this week, Call Girl was in sixth place.

The dog whistle that brings BBC4's sophisticated audience running is the phrase "adapted by Andrew Davies". At a time when the BBC's financial commitments are under scrutiny, is maximising the BBC4 audience the right priority?

Looking at the ratings, BBC4's share picked up to 0.6% from 0.4% the previous week. It was helped by contributions from QI on Friday at 10.30pm, which pulled in 550,000/3% share, and from The Genius of Photography, which attracted 470,000/3% when it aired on Thursday at 9pm.

Meanwhile, in the parallel universe of BBC3, the dog whistle that attracts the younger demographic is less subtle - My Big Breasts and Me on Thursday at 9pm found 760,000/4% share. Celebrity Scissorhands returned to BBC3 on Sunday at 9pm attracting just 250,000/1% share. To give that figure some context, at 6pm the same evening Sky One's Are You Smarter Than a Ten-Year-Old? had an audience of 550,000/3% share.

However, the channel with the biggest audience of the week was Sky Sports 1, which drew 1.9 million/13% share for Liverpool vs Arsenal on Sunday at 3.30pm. And are you wondering whether American football is likely to find a strong audience in the UK? Live NFL at Wembley was a great opportunity to showcase the game but the five-hour programme on Sky Sports 2 at 3pm averaged just 120,000 viewers/1% share. It peaked at 220,000 at 5pm, which was half time at Liverpool.
Philip Reevell can be contacted at philip.reevell@citybroadcasting.co.uk