More4 chief "mistrustful" of ratings data

More4 head Peter Dale has admitted that he is "mistrustful" of ratings data for digital channels.

Referring to the BARB sampling size - just 5,100 homes - Dale suggested that the figures produced are inaccurate for gauging the real audience of a minority channel such as More4.

"Sometimes 10,000 people watch a programme, then the next night 150,000 may watch it," he said at the Edinburgh TV Festival at the weekend.

He added that, from the perspective of a controller, ratings were not the only measure of success: "By and large, [you ask] 'Is there a reverberation about the programme?'"

Meanwhile, Dale said he was "not embarrassed" about the channel's repeats of C4 shows such as Deal Or No Deal and A Place In The Sun. "The critical thing for me is to get a lot of people through the door," he reasoned, "so they can get an idea of what the channel is about."

Separately, programming head Kevin Lygo agreed that the strategy was a good way of getting "more bang for your buck".

"[Some of our] documentaries are absolutely brilliant… [and] they so often only get shown once on Channel 4," he said. "More people will get to see it and I think that’s a completely legitimate… pragmatic [strategy]."