Originally Posted by chemical2009b:
“I'm sure six million people not just children were still watching Blue Peter in the 90s.”
But it doesn't matter how many adults were watching it, as mentioned it is a children's programme. And kids these days watch the CBBC Channel because there's never not been one in their lifetime. They are not used to tuning into BBC1 for kids shows, they look at the children's section of the EPG. (and I'm pretty sure that penetration of Sky and Virgin is much greater in homes with children compared to Freeview). They will not think of tuning to BBC1 for kids shows so it will do absolutely nothing for the number of children watching.
Children do watch BBC1 for other programmes however and they will tune in for things like Doctor Who and Total Wipeout when that was on. In addition, they do still show CBBC programmes on BBC1 anyway, they showed a re-edited version of Helen's South Pole Challenge and Horrible Histories and so on, and they will continue to do that. And they trail CBBC extensively on BBC1, I've seen the comedy on CBBC trailer umpteen times (it was on tonight).
It's no argument that this is marginalising childrens' programmes either because they continue to invest huge amounts of money into them, it was ringfenced in the cuts and they continue to attract major talent with the likes of Vic Reeves, Peter Serafinowicz and The League of Gentlemen contributing to CBBC programmes in the past eighteen months or so. They are absolutely committed to them.
Originally Posted by ronant:
“Blue Peter
From 1st January to 18th July each year these are the Blue Peter averages for children aged 4-15 (as that's what matters):
2006: 288k/16.5% BBC One
2013: 137k/8.2%”
Thank you for these. We seem to get Blue Peter In Crisis these days more than we get EastEnders In Crisis and it's no argument at all. As you can see, it may have halved in seven years but all TV shows have declined in that period given the rise of multichannel, and kids have a million and one more things to do these days.
And these figures are so relatively small that the margin of error makes comparisons hopeless week by week. The gap between number one and number ten in Broadcast's kids chart this week is sixty thousand. You get one council doing a sports day and you can easily have a thousand or so kids otherwise engaged, repeat that across the country and there they go, you've fallen out of the charts completely. It defies study in the same way as mainstream ratings. Even the fact more schools are on holiday this week will make a difference with those kinds of numbers.
What is the point of comparing Blue Peter with programmes on BBC1 and ITV (although, given Sky One, at 106 on the Sky EPG, got 20k at 10pm, I don't think they're that shabby for teatime on a kids channel)? How is it doing in comparison to CITV, Nick and Disney? That's what you need to compare it with. We already know it gets far more child viewers than Pointless and The Chase do, so what's the problem?
And any suggestions on how to change Blue Peter that aren't from kids are irrelevant. It's like asking people who hate football how to improve Match of the Day.
The anniversary thing.
