STV reports record audiences on hurricane coverage

STV has reported its strongest ever online and on-screen performance in Scotland due to the extreme weather that hit the country yesterday.

News coverage of the storm, dubbed 'Hurricane Bawbag' by the Scottish public, broke all previous record highs for the ITV licence holder in central Scotland.

STV online's unique browser hits reached 556,000 yesterday, 111% higher than the broadcaster's previous record of 263k during the 'Big Freeze' in 2010. The average browser requests for STV last month was also just 151,000.



The STV website saw almost 2m page impressions over the day, up by 125% on the previous best of 856k in December last year. The average number of daily page impressions on the STV website in November was 574k.

Total video views reached a new one-day high of 405k, with all the top 10 STV videos being weather related, including The River Clyde camera recording the most streams, at 61k.

STV's news programme STV News at Six attracted 800k viewers, a 37% audience share in its timeslot, while 184,000 viewers tuned in to current affairs strand Scotland Tonight.

Sean Batty, STV's weatherman, was even trending in the UK on Twitter at one point, and saw followers to @SeanBattySTV rise by around 4,000 at a result of the frequent weather updates.



STV's director channels Bobby Hain said: "STV broke all previous record highs and the performance across all our platforms demonstrates how we are now reaching huge audiences as a digital media business.

"Our news and online teams worked around the clock yesterday, braving the weather to bring the most up-to-date and shocking tales, and the unprecedented levels of traffic and impressive viewing shares are testament to this comprehensive and wide-ranging coverage."

In August, coverage of the rioting and unrest across England saw BBC News at Ten peak with a record 2011 audience of more than 8m viewers, as viewers tuned in to see the incredible developments.

> STV suffers 5% revenue dip, but sees digital growth