BBC reveals audience increases with new Live +7 figures

BBC reveals audience increases with new Live +7 figures

BBC

MUMBAI: BBC has published the first two months‘ figures for its new Live +7 data and has confirmed plans to publish audience appreciation information later this year.

These new measures will combine to provide the BBC with its most accurate assessment of programme value to date.

As revealed by former Director, BBC Vision Jana Bennett last November, Live +7 measures the total audience consuming content across all platforms, including live, recordings, narrative repeats, BBC iPlayer and HD for seven days after transmission.

The system makes use of Barb data and collates these ratings relating to a particular programme or episode alongside BBC iPlayer stats.

The results, to be published monthly, show that some of the BBC‘s most watched shows experience an increase of over four million viewers when measured over seven days. Crucially however, in the case of smaller shows, particularly on digital channels, the total audience for a show can increase by several hundred percent. These figures demonstrate that whilst overnight viewing figures are still extremely important, they increasingly tell only a part of the story.

Highlights from the first set of Live +7 figures published show the following programmes increased their audience as follows:

  • Come Fly With Me (BBC One 01.01.11) up 40 per cent to 10.1 million
  • Question Of Sport (BBC One 10.01.11) up 210 per cent to 6.6 million
  • Top Gear (BBC Two 30.01.11) up 97 per cent to 10.6 million
  • Madagascar (BBC Two 16.02.11) up 79 per cent to 6.0 million
  • junior Doctors (BBC Three 22.02.11) up 190 per cent to 3.5 million
  • How To Live With Women (BBC Three 28.02.11) up 387 per cent to 1.35 million
  • The Brain – A Secret History (BBC Four 06.01.11) up 127 per cent to 983,000
  • Romancing The Stone: The Golden Ages Of British Sculpture (BBC Four 09.02.11) up 198 per cent to 502,000

BBC Vision head of audience research David Bunker said, "The new Live +7 measure is very important to us as it helps us to see the total audience watching a show. Whilst these figures do not represent a replacement for the overnight information, it will be a very useful additional piece of data."

The BBC has also confirmed that it will publish quality data from later this year though the start date and for this has yet to be confirmed.