Audience Viewing Figures

Hi folks,

just read the forum news about the poor viewing figures for 'Roman's Empire' and other info about the shows on Friday night.

I don't know what constitutes a decent audience number these days... what with any amount of digital channels (and other forms of entertainment) to choose from.

Is under a million is a bad thing? I mean can the BBC expect high figures all of the time, even on one of the subs like BBC3, despite its attempts to herald that particular channel as the flagship of comedy?

I see that 'Peep Show' got 1.4 million for one of its episodes... is that good?

Perhaps they'd get more viewers if they renamed it 'Pee Show'?

700th Post!!

Anyway, I think different channels have different averages.

BBC 1 expects around 9 million viewers as does ITV1.

The rest I think 4 million is a good amount.

Their competeting with different things nowadays, internet, VOD, DVD's. I don't think they know what to do.

Wow, 700 posts - I feel quite inferior now! Well done Leevil.

As to how 'good' the viewing figures are - its all based upon the average the channel would normally expect for that time slot. 1 million is very low for that 10pm BBC2 slot - in comparison "Fear, Stress and Anger" managed 2 million in the same slot last month.

How many avatars Leevil?

But how exactly do they know these figures? Is there a little recorder in all our TV's that registers everything we watch and reports it make to them? Big Brother.

Honestly though there is no way they can know, It's all guess work by those twats with media degrees.

There's this wonderful (!) company called Nielsen who sign up a range of people, as a representation of the population as a whole (so maybe 5% of them being Asian, 20% over 65, etc), and stick boxes in their homes. I'm unsure of exactly how it works, but basically it records what's being watched, and they have to tell it (via remote control) whenever someone enters or leaves the room. Or something like that anyway.

In short, they record the viewing habits of what they consider to be a sample representative of the population as a whole.

So it is all guess work.

Pretty much.

Quote: David Chapman @ May 4, 2007, 11:29 PM

But how
Honestly though there is no way they can know, It's all guess work by those twats with media degrees.

View original

Hey!!!.... Oh wait I failed... Yeah those twats

Hey! Hold on a wee minute. What if you only had the one viewer. Yet he or she was all powerfull & could make 100.000000 peeps watch your show. Does that mean I still am shite?

If so I give the fook up. I was told (It aint what you know but who you know).
i HAVE LICKED AND KISSED AND CARESSED SOME MAJOR ARSE FOR THIS..

Yep, definitely squiffy.

Okay. I got my arse to tell his mates, and my jack danny to tell her mates & all of a sudden I am famous. Wahooooooooooooo.

Pls kick me off. I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo pissed.

Quote: David Chapman @ May 4, 2007, 11:50 PM

So it is all guess work.

View original

Absolutely. It's worse in America where one viewer's viewing habits is extrapolated out to represent hundreds of thousands however its pretty much the same here - only 5100 homes are measured! TV people admit it is an inaccurate measurement but they still go along with it as it is "the best we've got".

For more info see www.barb.co.uk - there's also the weekly top 30 on there which can be quite interesting. Looking at the figures is it any wonder BBC1 want more Eastenders?!? (I think what is more of a surprise is how much Deal or No Deal is propping up C4 at the moment)

For more on why viewing figures are rubbish try and find on YouTube Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe issue which cuts the Barb to shreads or the episode of Don't Watch That, Watch This which had a segment on audience measurement.

I seem to remember as show, I think it was comedy labs. The guys went around finding out who had these barb boxes and tried to convince them to watch their show for just a few minutes at least so it would record really high viewing figures.

Can't remember if it worked.

Quote: Mark @ May 5, 2007, 11:00 AM

For more on why viewing figures are rubbish try and find on YouTube Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe issue which cuts the Barb to shreads...

View original

Charlie Brooker rocks...

Or is that roacks?