Are there too many channels?

We have gone round in a circle and now we are back to square one...

What I am interested in, for the purpose of this discussion at the moment, is how many households watch a particular TV channel – for at least 30 minutes a day as a 10 second glance shouldn't really count – regardless of whether it is a UK channel registered with BARB; a UK channel not registered with BARB; or a foreign channel.

BARB figures are suboptimal for this purpose because they do not include foreign channels which could (or most likely do) attract sizeable audiences in the UK.

I'm not interested in matters like advertising revenue; names of people who watch a particular programme; or whether a programme is watched in real time or timeshifted etc. at the moment, although cross correlations (in terms of viewing hours over the course of say a week or a month) between different channels could be interesting to look at.

Is anybody on this forum seriously interested in channels outside of BBC, ITV, C4, and C5? There isn't much in the way of discussion about these channels on this forum along with a strong bias towards the 'traditional terrestrial' channels.

It is you who are taking us round in circles by showing no respect for the information posted by long established members of this community you have recently joined. You may not have got the answers you want because frankly most folk here don't agree with your narrow viewpoint but the discussion is there. If you don't understand it I suggest you re-read the thread.

It feels like this should have already been mentioned, but BARB does report cumulated viewing for "Other Non-BARB reported channels" in the weekly and monthly summaries they make available to the public. That figure usually hovers around a 0.8-1.0 percent share of total viewing. That figure ought to include all channels that don't subscribe to BARB, including foreign channels, but also some others like shopping channels and news channels. Most of these channels probably get miniscule viewing shares, although one or two may get around a 0.1 or 0.2 percent share.

It is not unlikely that BARB actually registers the names and overall viewing of these "non-reported" channels, but that they don't track the viewing of individual programmes and choose not to make them available to the public. You are free to contact BARB and pay them to put this information together for you.

That's nice. I don't know what you think we can do about it though.

As explained, the people who pay for the research BARB do currently aren't interested in that information, so either you'll have to pay BARB to collect it, or find your own way of performing that research. It doesn't currently exist.

Yep, I mentioned it back on page 7.... for all the good it did!

http://tvforum.uk/forums/post1000435#post-1000435

Well, you are.... and that's your fault


Well only BARB supply that information, so what are you going to do?



I gave you the figure for channels they don't include - at the end of February it was a total of 1.06%, 2.8 million viewers. Whether you count that as sizeable is up to you


Sirely channels that are watched more get talked about more?

Besides there are lots of threads about channel outside the 'traditional 5'... there's even a few about channels we can't get in the UK

[quote="Inspector Sands" pid="1001836"]I gave you the figure for channels they don't include - at the end of February it was a total of 1.06%, 2.8 million viewers. Whether you count that as sizeable is up to you[quote]

My own life experiences may or may not go down well with other members here but this one might be worth sharing...

A few years ago I was at a political meeting where it was mentioned that there must be at least 1 million - possibly even 2 million - people living in (Greater?) London at any one time that never, or very occasionally, watch any of the terrestrial channels because they do not offer many programmes that interest them, but instead they watch various satellite and cable channels. The figures includes ALL the satellite and cable channels - both UK and foreign - not available on Freeview. Nothing was mentioned for people not living in London.

In that case that BARB figure seems about right then

Don't get on the one hand how you can say nobody watches anything other than the main terrestrial channels yet on the other keep wittering on about the unmeasured folk watching "foreign" channels in the UK as being significant. I suspect (well, actually know from the data provided above) that their audience is less than those watching ITV3.

I think the main difference now to 20-30 years ago is people watch programmes rather than channels, although they always have of course.

The viewing figures for satellite and cable channels not available on Freeview will vary from region to region depending on the demographics of the region. Cutting down to regions will be too broad and blunt to be useful for analysis if there are channels that have 'islands' of popularity in particular towns but otherwise have very low viewing figures elsewhere. This is a factor which complicates the overall situation.

Nobody has yet answered my questions:

1. Which channels outside of the BBC, ITV, C4, and C5 do you consider to be most valuable, and why?

2. Are there any genres where programmes either do not exist or are few and far between that you would like to see more of?

Oh god, can this thread just get locked? It's going to go around in circles again.