Beeb urged to act af ter latest slide in ratings
Numbers watching Scottish channel plunge to new low
THE BBC Scotland television channel has seen viewer numbers slump by more than 45 per cent since its launch.
The average number of viewers per month was just over 21,000 in July, down from around 39,000 in March, new figures show.
The channel was launched on February 24 and has annual funding of £32million, but concern is growing over poor ratings.
Viewing figures for The Nine, the flagship news show, have fallen as low as 2,700 – close to a zero per cent audience share.
Last night the findings prompted a call for an ‘immediate and brisk review of BBC Scotland’ by the corporation’s UK bosses.
Former BBC editor and media commentator Professor Tim Luckhurst said the BBC’s board of management should conduct the review. He said: ‘The corporation is wrong to spend £32million on a channel that attracts such a tiny audience. The channel is not serving a useful purpose.’
He added the channel is ‘depriving excellent BBC journalism and entertainment of money that should be spent on programmes people in every part of the UK trust, value and enjoy’ – and that such ‘salami-slicing is unfair to licence fee payers’.
According to Broadcasters Audience Research Board statistics, there were 39,016 viewers in March, but 21,329 in July. Its share of the audience was 1.8
per cent in July, down from 3 per cent in March – with an average daily share of about 2.5 per cent.
For The Nine, presented by Martin Geissler and Rebecca Curran, the average viewing figures were 27,073 in March, falling to 12,738 in July, with audience share dropping from 1.7 per cent to only 0.85 per cent.
The average audience daily share for The Nine is 1.2 per cent.
On July 10, only 2,700 viewers tuned in to watch the show, a 0.19 per cent share of the audience – the lowest ratings for the programme to date.
The Nine attracted fewer than 46,000 viewers on average on its launch night, but hit 105,100 viewers on March 4, helped by the Scottish Cup semi-final draw on the show.
Pointing out the BBC ‘has less money available to fund frontline services than at any time in its recent history’, Professor Luckhurst said: ‘Editors of mass audience news shows on flagship channels are working within tight spending constraints. This is particularly regrettable because the BBC’s balanced reporting is valuable in times of crisis such as the one Britain faces over Brexit.’
Last night, Scottish Tory culture spokesman Rachael Hamilton said the ‘figures in themselves will be disappointing for BBC management’.
But she added: ‘The corporation needs to use this as motivation to get viewing figures up in future months.’
Broadcasting watchdog Ofcom forecast an audience share of 2.14 per cent for the BBC Scotland channel.
A BBC Scotland spokesman said the channel ‘continues to perform strongly and its viewing figures are in line with our projections and those of the independent regulator Ofcom.
‘Outside of the five main channels, the channel has the highest reach of any digital channel in Scotland – and at 17.6 per cent its performance is ahead of the BBC’s expectations.
‘The Nine is extending the reach of BBC Scotland news and bringing in new audiences.’
‘Channel not serving a useful purpose’