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BARB

(September 2001)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
WI
william Founding member
I may be missing something incredibly obvious - but I'm sure the BARB site (www.barb.co.uk) used to have the top ten programmes for BBC News 24 + BBC choice in addition to Sky News and all the other channels.

Any idea where I can find them?

In light of recent events was interested in comparing some of the news channels (also ITN News channel) and BBC choice to E4 / Sky One etc.

Thanks,
William
MI
Mich Founding member
Try Produxion, its much better than the BARB site.
CA
cat
You're best looking here:
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/tables/0,7683,550754,00.html

And this report is from Guardian Unlimited:

TV ratings have confirmed the instant alarm that spread across the nation at 2pm yesterday as news started to filter about the catastrophe in New York.

Up to 16m viewers were watching the news at its peak yesterday.

Within 10 minutes of the first crash, around 4m people were in front of a TV watching the tragedy unfold.

At 2.15pm, seven minutes after the second hijacked jet had crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York live on TV, 3.6m viewers were tuned into BBC1 and ITV.

Sky News's ratings shot from 55,000 to 154,000 between 2pm and 2.15pm.

By 3.30pm, after a third plane had smashed into the Pentagon and the two World Trade Centre towers had disintegrated into dust, all four terrestrial channels were running rolling news coverage and the combined audience had swelled to almost 7m.

At that point, three out of four TV viewers were glued to images of the catastrophe.

By 5pm the nation was transfixed - the news audience on BBC1, ITV, and Channel 5 was still climbing, reaching under 10m.

And Sky News, which was plugging into its sister station, Fox, in Manhattan, saw its audiences in multichannel homes rocket to a peak of 985,000. Its audience share was a record 14.56%.

BBC News 24 peaked at 366,000 viewers at 5.30pm - just 4% audience share but a huge boost on its earlier figures.

At 6pm, more than 16m were watching news coverage of the US terrorist attacks on BBC1 and ITV and the two rolling news services.

At that point, more than 70% of all TV viewers were tuned to the two terrestrial channels.

At 9pm, when BBC1, ITV and Channel 4 were all running special news programmes, the combined audience topped 16m - an audience share of just under 70%.

Even at midnight, 2.5m viewers were still glued to the live News 24 service going out on BBC1.

And the traditional switch to the BBC as the service of choice in times of crisis was confirmed by ratings for the BBC1's Six O'Clock News, which was seem 9.4m viewers - nearly double the previous night's audience.

However their lead was reversed at 9pm when ITV overtook the corporation with an hour long special fronted by Sir Trevor McDonald.

It was watched by 7.7m compared to BBC1's America Under Siege news special, anchored by David Dimbleby which drew 6.7m viewers between 8.30pm and 9.30pm.

ITN believes it is the first time they have overtaken the BBC at a time of such momentuous news.

Jon Snow presented a Channel 4 news special between 9pm and 10pm, which drew 1.2m viewers.

The normal Newsnight audience more than doubled, with 2.4m tuning in for an extended programme between 10.35pm and 11.45pm.

Overall, the old adage that people turn to the BBC in times of crisis was born out, with BBC1 taking a 33.3% audience share across all hours yesterday - up from 26.4% last Tuesday.

ITV had a 27.9% audience share - up slightly from 27.4% a week ago.

Sky News was rated the third most popular channel after BBC1 and ITV in multi-channel homes, according to ratings.

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