Viewing Figures

Viewing Figures are the number of viewers or households watching a television programme at any given time. Such figures are vital to commercial organisations such as ITV as they are the basis on which they charge other companies for advertisement slots although they are just as important to the BBC in that high audience figures remain an important political argument for the justification and continuation of the licence fee system.

Background
Today all UK audience figures are based on readings from meters fixed to a sample set of televisions across the country and the information they collate being published to show a television chart ranking. This process is overseen by BARB (Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board) who were set up jointly by the BBC and the then ITV group of companies and began operating on 1st August 1981. Prior to this the BBC conducted its own audience research while the ITV companies sub-contracted out the task to other organisations, in the main TAM (Total Audience Measurement) and AC Neilson. With the change to the ITV network in 1968, when stations such as Associated Rediffusion were dropped and new stations such as Thames Television and London Weekend Television began, the contract passed to AGB – today AGB Neilson, who still collate the data for the entire UK industry on BARB's behalf to this day.

It should be noted that prior to the establishment of BARB, not only did BBC and ITV collect audience data separately but they collected and collated it using totally different methods. The BBC did not use meter readings but instead used audience questionnaires based on the memory of the sample they chose. They then published their data as millions of viewers. TAM/AGB used meter readings and published the data as millions of homes viewing. This latter collation method changed in 1977 and the generally accepted conversion ratio is 2.2 viewers to one home.[ http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/mostwatched/research.html] Therefore the first episode of Coronation Street to make the charts (Episode 25 on 6th March 1961) was watched by 5,883,000 million homes which equates to 12,942,600 viewers.

The figures used on this website are as originally published i.e. homes until 1977 and viewers thereafter and are sourced from television industry magazines, primarily Television Mail (which changed its name to Broadcast in March 1973) and on occasion The Stage and Television Today. It should be noted that Television Mail initially published only a top 10 until the middle of 1961 and it is possible early episodes of Coronation Street appeared in positions 11 to 20.

Coronation Street 's history in the charts
Coronation Street’s presence in the charts was not instant but the programme did ascend the rankings in the spring and summer of 1961. A high point for the programme was in 1962 when in fifty of the fifty-two weeks of that year one of the episodes shown was in first place. The numbers slowly declined for the rest of the 1960s and early 1970s although they never reached the levels claimed by Daran Little in his 2000 book 40 Years of Coronation Street when he said that Episode 1264 on 26th February 1973 was watched by only 8.3 million viewers. In fact 7.1 million homes saw that episode and in that year Coronation Street reached the number one spot in seven weeks and only failed to make the top twenty on three occasions – all of them public holidays when people’s viewing habits are less consistent.

The programme slowly re-climbed the ratings in the late 1970s and again dominated the charts in the early to mid-1980s. Although Crossroads had achieved high ratings in the mid to late 1970s (after Granada starting broadcasting it in September 1972, thereby ensuring it was fully networked for the first time) the first real competition came when the BBC launched EastEnders in February 1985. Quickly popular, it ascended the charts and reached the number one position in every week in 1986, a unique occurrence, however the media and the BBC ignored Granada’s quite accurate claim that the numbers were distorted as they combined the original showing of the episode and the omnibus repeat to produce one figure whereas until 22nd January 1989 Coronation Street did not have an omnibus edition. When it did, combined with the popular Alan Bradley storyline, the programme regained pole position. To this day, Coronation Street and EastEnders jockey for position for the number one spot on most weeks of the year.

Christmas
The only major change in the viewing figures since the programme made its first entry in the charts in 1961 is the importance of the Christmas edition. Quite often in the first two decades of the programme an edition shown on a public holiday, especially Christmas Day, was the lowest rated episode of the year, almost always not even making the top twenty. Probably for this reason only one episode of the programme - in 1972 - was shown on 25th December in the 1970s. In 1974 and 1978 no episode was shown on that date, even though Christmas Day fell on a normal Coronation Street transmission day. Public taste, and the boradcaster’s reaction to it, changed forever in 1986 when EastEnders’ episode on Christmas Day of that year gained over 30 million viewers – a record (although as noted above, this number combined the omnibus numbers from the repeat a few days later). Coronation Street gained the honours the next year with over 27 million viewers watching the departure of Hilda Ogden – a number achieved without an omnibus repeat. With the exception of 1993 an episode has been shown on Christmas Day each year since.

Annual rankings
The table below summaries the chart rankings for Coronation Street for each year since 1961 when the programme first appeared in the charts.

Note: 1) As stated above, TAM published only a top ten until mid-1961 and it is possible that Coronation Street appeared on other unrecorded occasions in that year. For this reason no figure is given for the "Eps o/s top 20" column for that year 2) “Lowest Rated” episode refers to the lowest published number within the top twenty – as stated above, there were other episodes which failed to make the top twenty. 3) 1962 and 1965 have more episodes at the No. 1 position than there are weeks in a year as there were several weeks when both the Monday and Wednesday episode were both in first position with the same number of homes watching. They are therefore both counted within the number given. 4) 1965's unusually high figure of six episodes outside the top twenty (and the least watched episode being late in the year in October) is due to the BBC scheduling episodes of Steptoe and Son directly opposite the Monday edition of Coronation Street for several weeks in the autumn.

Episodes as "Millions of Homes" (1961 - 1977)
(To be completed...)