More4 News Contract

The World often registers zero viewers, so I'm told.



Our (analogue only) relay was off air until about 20 mins ago. Can't say how long it was off for as the satellite tv is always on instead. All it took was some mist and a bit of [not particularly heavy] rain...

Which is anything less than 10,000 viewers.

Only in the UK though!

More4 News now has its own section on the ITN site: www.itn.co.uk/more4_news

Or more accurately - The World on BBC Four registers zero viewers in the UK as reported by BARB. This ignores the fact that The World is also broadcast globally on BBC World. Not directly relevant when comparing it to UK programmes that are only available to UK audiences I know - but these things aren't straightforward.

However, as I understand it, the much-maligned BBC Three News usually gets higher ratings than The World on BBC Four, and usually out-rates News 24, Sky and ITV News in the same timeslot.

I thought BBC3 News got "Zero" ratings too! It used to be very good, but since the sofas came in has never been the same. I've always said it was never appropriate for BBC3 - they'd be much better off having updates throughout the evening, then a 15 minute "Newsbeat" style bulletin at 11pm.

Nope - BBC Three actually rates quite highly for a show that inherits an audience of zero. (It is the first thing on the channel...) It often gets 30,000 or more, and it isn't unheard of for it to get 50,000. It does dip lower than this as well - and the usual caveats that figures below 50,000 are unreliable remain. (However they are the only figures we have...)

It has established a significantly larger audience than when it launched. The original BBC Three News Shows often got as low as 7,000 viewers - but the 30 minute show has been more popular.

When it moved to 2030 it reached 90,000 on a couple of occasions - and certainly didn't plummet compared to the shows either side.

(More4 News seems to cause a big dip between Grand Designs and the Daily Show)

Well, last night More4 News got 55,000 - half the number of viewers watching Grand Designs before it! Can't find figures for BBC3/4 News, or the news channels, so it's difficult to know how it's really doing!

It is a good bulletin, but I guess it'll take time to get it's identity.

It's got to decide whether it wants to be a kind of "C4 News Extra", with more on stories featured in C4 News, picking up viewers who also watched the C4 bulletin - or an alternative bulletin to C4 News, offering a 30 minute intelligent news round up to those who didn't watch the main 7pm bulletin.

To do the latter I think it may benefit from a move to a later slot, and it's not going to get any later than 8.30pm as More4 won't want it interupting their flagship 9pm slot.

Yep - the drop-off of inheritance is probably more of a worry than the absolute ratings, as people are still taking time to find the channel (so the total audience will hopefully increase). The fact that half the channel left when the news started is more important I guess.

The day before the News got 17,000 I think. 55,000 is a good absolute figure when compared to Sky News, News 24, ITV News at that time though.

Interesting style of trail on 4 just before the Simpsons.

I just caught the last few seconds. What's it about?

On Monday night, there was a funny mid-R&J trail in which Sarah's thoughts told us that she was so excited to be presenting her own news show, but she wondered what Jon thought. Cut to him fiddling with his tie and humming the theme...

EDIT: Just read back a bit further in the thread

I've only managed to catch the programme a couple of times, but I can't quite get over the uber-slick transition between title sequence and the first studio shot. How do they do it?!