C5 beats C4 in weekly ratings for first time in 17 year history
BigOrange
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Boosted by the return of Endemol's hit format Celebrity Big Brother, Channel 5 managed a greater share of the audience across all individuals, all hours and including +1 channels than C4 across an entire week of broadcasting for the first time in its 14 year history.
Week ending August 24 Results
Channel 5: 5.4% (5.0% core; 0.4% +1)
Channel 4: 5.3% (4.5% core; 0.8% +1)
C5 has managed ratings victories over C4 before on specific days or excluding less competitive hours like 2AM-6AM but never before has it pulled off a comprehensive weekly ratings win over its bigger rival.
Both channels were narrowly pipped by BBC Two (5.5%) for third place behind BBC One and ITV.
http://www.barb.co.uk/whats-new/weekly-viewing-summary?_s=4
Week ending August 24 Results
Channel 5: 5.4% (5.0% core; 0.4% +1)
Channel 4: 5.3% (4.5% core; 0.8% +1)
C5 has managed ratings victories over C4 before on specific days or excluding less competitive hours like 2AM-6AM but never before has it pulled off a comprehensive weekly ratings win over its bigger rival.
Both channels were narrowly pipped by BBC Two (5.5%) for third place behind BBC One and ITV.
http://www.barb.co.uk/whats-new/weekly-viewing-summary?_s=4
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Comments
C5's controller says it's not about beating C4 and he's right but he surely must get at least some satisfaction out of seeing the progress that has been made in the ratings, with the potential for more to come under their new big money American owners subject to regulatory approval. Not to mention how insufferable C4 boss Jay Hunt has been on the subject, blaming previous ratings evidence that saw C5 pip C4 on data manipulation and claiming that E4 is capable of beating C5 amongst E4's core audience which is hardly the point.
Here is the clearest evidence yet that there's hardly anything between the two channels now despite the fact that Four has considerable things in its favour. Four is underperforming and Five is punching above its weight. If this closeness can be maintained the viewers can only benefit. A more competitive commercial landscape will see all concerned working harder than ever before to deliver more of the quality must see programming we all want.
The only person who's boasting is Dancc, official spokesperson for Channel 5.
BBC2 beats both 4 and 5 ?
And that all depends on if you consider something that happens almost weekly to be as noteworthy as something that has happened once in the past 900+ weeks of ratings.
So I'm going to say no.
This graph clearly illustrates what I am talking about, via the ratings provider BARB:
http://www.barb.co.uk/trendspotting/data/channel-viewing-share?data_series%5B%5D=5&data_series%5B%5D=56&data_series%5B%5D=181&period_start=24-08-1997&period_end=24-08-2014&button_submit=View+graph
They have sort of swapped over.
I don't know where you get that from, take a look at CH4 schedules. CH4 is wall-to-wall cheap "factual", usually of an exploitative nature.
Did you understand I was referring to the actual ch4 and ch5 of these two broadcasters?
Hmmm, it's more the case that C5 has managed to just about maintain its audience while C4's has plummeted, but the theory still stands...
It's more interesting to me that BBC2 is barely ahead of both channels, with BBC2's decline almost exactly paralleling C4's - I'm inclined to think that both BBC2 and C4 have shed viewers over the years as they've both gone more lowbrow, though BBC2 has a bit of an excuse inasmuch as a lot of what would have been "their" content in the past has migrated to BBC4...
What they are doing is junk, but they apply a thin veneer of PSB just before broadcast...
Channel 4 is a dungheap
Just look at 4Seven - it shows Channel 4 up for what it is.....................
With it's new owner, I hope Channel 5 becomes even more American
Ah yes, Channel 5, the broadcaster that bought the rights to Breaking Bad and dropped it after 1 series (claiming it didn't get the ratings, which totally had nothing to do with them moving it all over the schedule)
To be fair, Breaking Bad S1 didn't do that well in terms of ratings Stateside either, even in terms of its relatively niche channel. It was really Netflix and Hulu which made it viable for the network to keep going. Considering C5 wouldn't benefit from the money and probably wouldn't be privy to the stats demonstrating the show's success, they were hardly wrong to treat it the way they did.
It obviously did well enough in the US to be continually renewed, because it wasn't until Season 5 that Netflix made it huge and it got massive ratings. Critical response was enough to keep it on the air in the US, but Five never gave it the treatment it deserved.
They quickly moved it to FiveUSA after a few weeks, which few people at the time had, so how could it be expected to get good figures on an obscure channel?
They're also massively underselling "The Walking Dead", which is absolutely massive in the US, getting triple the viewers of "Game Of Thrones", yet it's GoT which gets all of the super-hype from Sky, and TWD which gets shunted off onto the graveyard slot on 5USA... maybe 5 just needs to ramp up its PR efforts...? (I love both shows BTW, just sayin')