[asp746]

all this money spent on neighbours and the news with natasha kaplinsky. will it improve audience figures significantly as i thought not all parts of the country could get channel 5 which would mean no matter what they do they'll never be able to compete with bbc1/itv?

if so, what's been the point??

i really hope the opposite is true tho, i've been a fan of channel 5 and watch quite a few of the progs - i've even tried to get back into watching neighbours.

[prking]

You obviously missed all the threads and the news article about the ratings for the CSI/Without a Trace crossover. These show five get ratings that put them in the same league as the other analogue broadcasters and on a par with BBC1 / ITV1 on occasion.

[DocumentaryFan]

Originally Posted by asp746

all this money spent on neighbours and the news with natasha kaplinsky. will it improve audience figures significantly as i thought not all parts of the country could get channel 5 which would mean no matter what they do they'll never be able to compete with bbc1/itv?

if so, what's been the point??

It's simple; they hope that the new programming will increase ratings and therefore bring in (substantially) more advertising revenue than the cost of that programming. Whether or not they beat BBC1 (which, being non-commercial, isn't their direct competitor anyway) isn't as important.

I'd say 2008 will be the making of five and within 3 years, it will be level with Channel 4 in terms of ratings. But whether that is because Channel 4 will go down? Who knows. But I don't think five will remain as the "other" or "fifth" terrestrial channel that nobody really bothers watching for much longer.

[mb@2day]

Highly optimistic view .

Five have invested very heavily in the aim to improve their postition. I think they are looking for a bigger or equal success to that the us drama series have given them. If it doesnt work out I can't see where they go next .

More sport perhaps ?

[NeilVW]

Originally Posted by asp746

all this money spent on neighbours and the news with natasha kaplinsky. will it improve audience figures significantly as i thought not all parts of the country could get channel 5 which would mean no matter what they do they'll never be able to compete with bbc1/itv?

if so, what's been the point??

According to five's sales website (admittedly this needs to be treated with caution!), 92% of the population can get five by some method. Analogue terrestrial coverage is weak in many places, for example along the south coast (to avoid interference with French transmissions), but this is compensated for by many of these households having Sky, cable or Freeview.

[ftv]

Hmm. According to Mike Brown's independent mb21 web site, Five is available to about 80% of the country by terrestrial transmission wheras BBC/ITV reach about 99 % by conventional land-based transmissions.There are large areas of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland etc which cannot get Five (other than by satellite),similarly the Channel Islands and even parts of the north and south.

[NeilVW]

Yes, 80% analogue terrestrial coverage sounds about right. So if 60% of the remaining people have digital (which sounds reasonable), that takes them up to 92%.

[Sprogg]

Originally Posted by Tom1007

I'd say 2008 will be the making of five and within 3 years, it will be level with Channel 4 in terms of ratings. But whether that is because Channel 4 will go down? Who knows. But I don't think five will remain as the "other" or "fifth" terrestrial channel that nobody really bothers watching for much longer.

I think C4 will probably begin to find its feet again in the next 2 years. Five would have been better going for it earlier when C4 was basically on it's knees which was much of 2007.

[Wozza20]

I think five are planning for the future, and not just today.

If everything we read about digital switchover is true, when analogue is switched off, and the digital power is increased, almost everybody in the UK should be able to receive five.

They have some very popular programmes with the people that can receive five, and seem to be growing in strength. The Ice Road Truckers, CSI franchise, House, Extraordinary People, Sports, Home and Away and Neighbours all deliver good ratings now. Only last week, more people watched CSI on five than any other channel than BBC1.

I don't think paying £300m for Neighbours was just about ratings and share boosting, it also screamed out that five is here, and not the poor channel people presume it to be. And to wrestle such well known programmes as Home and Away from ITV and Neighbours from BBC1 is quite a lot of shouting.

There have been rumours aplenty they are interested in taking The Bill from ITV1. Many people laughed at the time, but I'd say "Watch This Space".

[rzt]

All of Five's channel's ratings have gone up in the last week. Neighbours has definitely been a big hit for them:

Neighbours brings Five ratings joy
Channel Five pulled in its best ratings for over a year last week while its two digital channels posted their best ever figures off the back of the arrival of Neighbours and imported American drama.

Five's main network recorded an average audience share of 6%, its best figure since December 2006, while digital channels Five Life and Five US had their highest ratings since they launched in October 2006.

According to an analysis of Barb data conducted by AGB Nielsen, Five's first-week average for Neighbours, which it wrestled away from the BBC in a £300m 10-year deal last year, stood at 986,000 viewers for the lunchtime 1.45pm to 2.15pm showing, and 2.1 million for the 5.30pm to 6pm broadcast.

Five said a further 175,000 viewers on average watched the Australian soap on Five Life every day.

A Five spokeswoman said the broadcaster expected the ratings to go up once consolidated figures were available.

The equivalent pre-Neighbours lunchtime slot on Five, which was previously occupied by matinee movie repeats, averaged around 300,000 viewers, according to AGB Nielsen.

In the 5.30pm slot, previously home to Five's early evening news bulletin, a weekday audience of around 700,000 viewers was the average.

Meanwhile, the loss of Neighbours has seen BBC1's audience decline from 2.4m to 1.3m in Neighbours' old lunchtime slot, with the move of The Weakest Link from BBC2 for the evening slot pulling in an average audience of 2.8m.

AGB Nielsen put the average audience for the Australian soap on BBC1 between December and February 10 at 2.4 million for the lunchtime 2.10pm to 2.35pm episode, and 2.8 million for the evening 5.35pm to 6pm slot.

The audience research company said a further breakdown of the figures showed that on BBC1, Neighbours skewed female, older and mid-market.

On Five it has swung even more female, at 69% of the audience, and more downmarket, with 60% C2DE versus 54% when it was on BBC1.

Age-wise, 42% of the audience remained older than 55 with the move to Five; but the 16- to 34-year-old demographic has grown from 19% to 22% - a positive sign for Five's commercial audience delivery.

AGB Nielsen Media Research's UK client services director, Ross Wightman, said it would not be fair to expect Five to match BBC1's audience for Neighbours, because around 20% of UK households cannot receive an analogue signal for the commercial channel.

Five also has a much lower average share, usually at around 5%, compared with around 20% for BBC1.

Wightman added that half the population watched Five at some point in an average week compared with more than three-quarters watching BBC1.

Five also did well last week with a linked double-header of CSI on its main channel and Without a Trace on Five US on Tuesday, pulling in 3.8 million and 2.25 million respectively.

Last week Five US's multichannel share stood at 0.83%, with Tuesday its best ever day with a 1.82% share for the tie-in for Without a Trace, which Five claimed was the largest ever audience for a US drama on a digital channel.

Five Life's weekly multichannel share was 0.57%, with its best ever day on Friday with 0.9%.

[DS9]

Originally Posted by DocumentaryFan

Whether or not they beat BBC1 (which, being non-commercial, isn't their direct competitor anyway) isn't as important.

The BBC is a direct competitor despite being non-commercial. Every viewer the BBC wins is potential revenue that Five has lost. Five has to directly compete with the Beeb to get those viewers to turn over.