Originally Posted by ellajones:
“I think the stats show series 6 is doing well, however, as tv viewing habits have changed you can't really compare with series 1-4. Television viewing figures in general are up over the past couple of years (6%), and drama is proportionally up even more (someone posted a link to a Guardian article on this). PVRs Sky+ and iplayer have really taken off over this period as well. I have argued before that with this viewer choice then "good" Programmes which have a good name or good word of mouth will benefit in terms of figures. Who knows how series 1-4 would have done on iplayer and PVRs - probably as well as series 5 & 6. No reason to say why they wouldn't, probably with comparably lreduced overnights
Of course series 6 has had two additional events - the last end of part 1 and the first in part 2 - the first and last episodes in any series tend to do better (although that wasn't the case with the Big Bang. That is reflected in the figures, avoiding mid-series dip.
The figures are fine still good. I think only a few silly anti-bbc papers would say otherwise.”
The amount of TV viewing has increased from 219 minutes per person per day in 2005, to 242 minutes per person per day in 2010 (though 2005 to 2006 actually saw a small fall) - the bulk of the increase comes from older (45+) adults - with another bulge amongst those in their early 20s . That's a 10.5% increase (the increase from 2008 to 2010 was 224 minutes to 242 minutes, or 8%).
However - the reasons for the increase in the amount of TV viewing are pretty easy to find. It's not increased audiences for individual shows (not to enough of a degree to register - if anything average ratings have continued to either fall or stay level over most TV categories). It's the increased amount of TV that people have access to, and the increased opportunities to catch that TV via new technologies (namely DTRs and VOD services).
In 2005 only 13,526 TV owning homes had access to multi platform digital TV (cable, satellite and terrestrial combined) - 54% of all TV owning homes. In 2008 this was 21,104 homes - 82% of all TV homes. By 2010 this had reached 23,831 homes - 92% of homes. By now we're getting pretty close to the 100% point - for obvious reasons, by 2012 there won't be an alternative.
That's the amount of available TV. The amount of opportunities to watch TV comes from the new technologies. From 2005 to 2010 the number of homes with DTRs went from 20% to 44% (by now it's estimated to have hit the 50% mark). Copious research tells us that homes with DTRs increase the amount of TV that they watch, watch a great number of channels, and watch more TV (overall) than homes without DTRs. The amount of TV timeshifted (mainly via DTRs - as this period covers only the infancy of VOD, and the amount of timeshifted TV via VCRs etc. was small even back in 2005) rose five-fold from 2005 to 2009 (1.2% to 5.9%).
We're still in the early days with seeing patterns re. VOD (such as iPlayer), but indications so far are that the same is happening.
That's where that increase in TV viewing is coming from.
From what we can see with regard to long established TV channels, and popular programmes, there's no clear pattern re. increase or decrease in viewing numbers (some shows go up, some go down, most do both, some stand still), but there is a clear pattern of shifting from live viewing to timeshifted and on demand viewing. Doctor Who just happens to be particularly well documented, but it isn't alone.
Perhaps the fairest comparison for Doctor Who viewing figures is to consider the weekly reach. Now there's a reasonably amount of guesstimating that has to happen here, but we can at least use data and information from the BBC to do it. Based on that, the comparative weekly reaches for Series One to Six look like this:
Average Weekly Reach Per Series (no specials are included)[LIST][*]Series 1 - 8.64 m[*]Series 2 - 8.66 m[*]Series 3 - 8.78 m[*]Series 4 - 9.95 m[*]Series 5 - 9.42 m[*]Series 6 - 9.49 m (so far)[/LIST]
A steady increase from Series One to Three, a peak for Series Four, and a fall back for Series Five (but still not back to Series Three levels), with Series Six showing a slight climb again (so far).
The assumptions behind these figures are that a) BBC Three repeats have a 90 - 95% unique (new) audience (this is what BBC research suggests); and b) that the actual unique viewership via iPlayer is equal to approximately 66% of the total requests (this is based on released Live+7 data from the BBC).
Things to note are:
[LIST][*]Series Two was the first to see Sky+ figures included in the official ratings (BARB started to record them in March 2006) - though these still represented a fairly small addition at that point.
[*]Series Four is the first where we can include iPlayer in the reach - and while we can say 'look at that jump', the iPlayer figures are responsible for only 0.34 million of it.
[*]Series Five was the first to benefit from VOD inclusion in the official ratings (not including online viewing - e.g. iPlayer) - again, still a fairly small addition.[/LIST]
Obviously part of the apparent increase in viewership is down to increased opportunities to view. Which means if access to DTRs and VOD had been at the same levels in 2005 as now, the reach for Doctor Who back then might well have been higher. How many more 'Saturday Night Takeaway' viewers (7.47 million ITV 1 ratings vs. 10.81 million BBC One ratings for 'Rose') might have watched Doctor Who, if it had been a matter of using the second tuner of their DTR, or catching up via iPlayer, we shall never know.
Still - considering the vastly greater competition for viewer's hearts, and the greater choice in terms of when and how to view, Doctor Who has done rather well to thrive as it has.
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