WOS Wrestling Ratings

I doubt it. WOS Wrestling got 400k last Saturday. That's lower than any show on BBC One on Saturday, other than a film that started at gone midnight. It got beaten by Escape to the Country on BBC Two...

Does such a concept of “major” free to air channels actually exist outside of the broadcasting bubble? From my experience, the answer seems to be a very definite no. For viewers in general, there doesn’t seem to be any significant difference in stature between the channels. It’s just a case of does it have programmes that I want to watch.

Except that it’s not all it is, because there are other factors outside of broadcasting, that are telling a different story than the ratings alone suggest. The wrestling industry in the U.K. is in a period of growth that hasn’t been seen since the cancellation back in the late 80’s. I question the decision to go earlier in the evening, when actually a post-late News slot might be better, but the wrestling industry is in a boom period, and compared to 5 or 10 years ago, 400,000 viewers is a huge improvement on what they could have expected back then for British wrestling.

When it comes to WWE however, there are very different issues in play, and they have little to no bearing on WOS’s numbers. WWE’s UK viewership is going down at a time when British wrestling is becoming more popular, and WWE’s product has been somewhat lacklustre.

After this series, I’m expecting that WOS will return next year, but on ITV4, rather than the main ITV channel itself.

Of course it does. Just see the amount of people who complain when Eastenders sometimes gets bumped to BBC Two during sports events. Same show, same time but it's on BBC Two.

Err, by those standards BBC2 is a major free-to-air channel. If a show is bumped for sport, the reaction tends to be from those who don't want to watch sport. Why soap fans get so angsty about their favourite shows being moved around just baffles me. But no, that doesn't equate, not even close.

In ratings terms - absolutely the concept continues to exist.

Last ratings from BARB - weekly share of all viewing https://www.barb.co.uk/viewing-data/weekly-viewing-summary/ :

BBC One 19.76%
BBC Two 5.65%
ITV SD +1 and HD added 13.76%
C4 and C4+1 5.6%
C5 4.5%

This means the 5 main terrestrials account for pretty much 50% of all UK TV viewing across the week. They are still dominant players. Compare the BBC One and ITV shares in double figures with the next highest rated non-Big 5 channel - ITV3...

The next highest share of any other channel were the terrestrial operated, universally (or nearly) available ITV3 2.23%, ITV2 1.72% and Cbeebies 1.44%.

The most popular non-'terrestrial operated' service was next, and was Drama at 1.35%, beating E4 at 1.33%



Yes - but it's clear BBC One and ITV have more programmes that more people want to watch. The big 5 terrestrials are still the 5 most watched channels in the UK.

In ratings terms, maybe, but every channel you've mentioned is a Freeview channel, and therefore available across the country. Most of the most viewed channels, with the exception of Sky Sports Main Event and Sky 1, are all Freeview channels. As a general rule of thumb, those channels that are on Freeview, rate better than those that aren't.

I get the impression that the major channels concept has been seriously diluted since Freeview came into being, and if it isn't dead already, it soon will be.

I'm sure that'll go down well at the next shareholder's meeting.



400,000 viewers isn't much more than a rounding error. Are you sponsored by British Wrestling, or something? It's like Trump and his inauguration crowd.



You keep saying that, but why is no-one watching it on telly?

Or is it some kind of weird circular argument? "Look, wrestling's back on telly, it must be doing well!"

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Anyway so Doctor Who's a lady now eh?

You rather obviously know nothing about the pro-wrestling industry, and care less about it. There is no such company as British Wrestling or anything like it that acts as an overseer of the industry. Most pro-wrestling companies in the UK are small family businesses, rather than the major corporation WWE is. I just like to see small business survive and thrive.



Is that seriously the best argument, you can come up with?

Attendances for wrestling events are up, there are more wrestling events in the UK than there have been since the cancellation of wrestling on ITV back in the late 80s, and its popularity is growing so much that even WWE have been taking notice.

Pro Wrestling is cheaper to produce for a TV audience than a major drama series, and you can take it on tour, which you can't do with a major drama, which WOS Wrestling are doing in January and February next year. It's a form of programming that can make money without having to be on screen.

It's not a case of pro-wrestling's back on telly so it must be doing well, it's rather more pro-wrestling is doing stellar business, so ITV wanted to get it back on telly.

In the current broadcasting climate, 400k isn't exactly no-one, and for something that hasn't been on screen on a regular basis for 30 years, WOS Wrestling is doing far better than anybody in the wrestling industry could have hoped for. You're not going to get the 25 million or whatever it was who watched Jackie Pallo vs Mick McManus back in the mid 60s.

Heck there are channels out there right now that would probably kill for one of their programmes to get 400k viewers. BBC News, 5 Select, the CBS channels, CITV, Comedy Central, Dave, Discovery, Fox, Gold, ITV4, More 4, MTV, S4C, Universal Channel and W are amongst the many channels to not rate 400k viewers at all last week, and others saw a few programmes surpass that mark, but most fall short.



So? I don't really care whether its a man or a woman playing the Doctor, I just care about the stories and the performances.

Sorry - we're drifting way away from the Doctor Who topic here.

Ratings are generally the metric that is used to judge a TV channel's popularity. The major channels are still the main, formerly-analogue terrestrial services. They are still, most definitely, the major channels.



Yes - that's because they are in more homes, so have a larger potential audience. However that doesn't change the fact that the big 5 - and BBC One and Two in particular - are still the major channels.

Look at shows like GBBO or The Bodyguard - they are getting good overnights and consolidating hugely. Channels that reach 8-9m people with a single show are definitely still 'major'.

Even if you were to remove Freeview figures and just look at the ratings across Pay TV platforms, I'm sure you'd find BBC One and ITV still significantly ahead of the others.

I don't have time to drill down to see if that data is around (I'm sure it is) - but this is of interest :

Household platform figures :

Freeview only 11.4m (no Sky or Cable)
Freeview total 18.31m (inc Sky and Cable households)
Sky 8.6m
Cable 4.17m



The death of the big 5 channels, mixed-genre channels, linear TV, broadcasting vs narrowcasting in general, etc. have all been predicted, but the reality is that there is still a place for them.

There is a worry that the average age is increasing, and multichannel is now taking 50% of the audience - but 50% of the audience is still taken by 5 channels, the other 50% by the remaining hundreds of channels...

I suspect BBC One and ITV may well outlast Freeview. (Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands are all looking at shutting their Freeview-equivalent services) - and I don't think many think we'll replace DVB-T2 (though we are likely to migrate fully to it) with a third generation system before we go fully IP.

Well, fancy that, ratings being used as a metric to judge popularity, who'd have thunk that? #sarcasm.

As strange an idea as this may be for you, I don't think the concept of major channels has a lot to do with how many people watch them, it's part of it, but it's not the whole of it. Also included in that idea would be things like how long has the channel been around, and BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 at least definitely win out here too, and how many platforms the channel is on, whether it's on Freeview or not, how much advertising does it do outside of its own channels, other factors like that. And lots of those do favour BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to greater and lesser degrees.

But honestly, I think the concept of major channels is an outdated one. Previously, it was an unarguable thing. Now the very notion of major TV channels these days is questionable when so many people have access to so many viewing choices, be it through Freeview, Freesat, Sky, Cable or even online.




The gap is nowhere near as big on pay TV platforms only, as I understand it, and the gap is going to continue to narrow slowly as we go along. At some point, maybe 10 years, maybe 20 years away, maybe 50 years away, a non-big 5 channel will outrate the current big 5. It will happen at some point.



The likelihood of IP becoming the de facto standard for either radio or television is being highly over-rated. The future will be a multi-platform future, and I hardly think shutting OTA broadcasting is an idea that will catch on.

Lots of things have been predicted to die, but mostly, its concepts that die. The concept of major channels is pretty much already dead out there in the world at large. People don't care much about channels, they care about programmes.

And they care about wrestling so much, the ratings have been sliding significantly, which would only get worse if it were bumped off to ITV4 (not exactly a great shop window for this planned tour).