Media Websites

25 years of BARB

(September 2006)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
BH
BillyH Founding member
No, not Windsor. BARB, the people who measure the ratings, have put up a neat site up here:

http://www.barb.co.uk/25Years/index.php

By clicking on the year buttons, you can find out TV events, the top ten highest rated programmes, and the amount of reported channels from every year from 1981 onward.

Interesting to see the development of multi-channel TV. It starts slowly, kicks off in about 1996, and then explodes following the launch of Sky Digital. And the ratings obviously show a steady decline over the years - in 1982, the top rated programme got 22.90 million, while in 2005, only 14.36 million. In fact, the last programme to get over 20 million (discounting 2004's England v Portugal match) was the 2001 Christmas special of Only Fools and Horses!
CO
Colm
Fascinating reading. I had forgotten how massive Neighbours was in the late 1980s and early 1990s - the highest rated programme of 1990! And all those Royal programmes getting high ratings in the 1980s, dear oh dear.

However, they are wrong on saying the ITC replaced the IBA in 1993 - that was on 1st January 1991.
:-(
A former member
I see that It'll Be Alright on the Night keep poping up on the top 10 most wacth every couple of year!

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