According to BBC head of new media, Ashley Highfield, at Edinburgh this weekend, by 2009, around 25 per cent of television viewing will be accounted for by archive material. Highfield also goes on to say that within the next five years, a terrestrial TV hit will be attracting less than 5 million viewers.
And on the evidence suggested by my own viewing habits, and the current trend in TV ratings, I have to agree. I’m more likely to sit down and watch a DVD of a television show I have sitting on the shelf in a shiny box set, rather than plumbing for something first run from a broadcaster. We’re also in a TV world where a channel such as BBC 4 can have reasonable success with a vintage rerun of I, Claudius, proving that audiences are responsive to nostalgia in spades.
And as to the ratings issue, aside from the soaps, we’re already heading into the age where 5 million is considered a decent rating for a prime time drama. Outside the soaps, the highest rated dramas line up as follows in the overnights:
16 Casualty 6.8 million (Saturday)
18 Holby City 6.4m (Tuesday)
19 Silent Witness 5.8m (Monday)
25 Murphy’s Law 5.1m (Sunday)
28 The Bill 5m (Thursday)
(source: BARB)
Casualty and Holby aside, which are mainstay items of the BBC schedule, Silent Witness, Murphy’s Law and The Bill (a once big hitter) are highly successful, important shows, and back in the day would have been likely to pull 10 million plus. And unless you want to start crying, don’t even look beyond number 30 in the chart.
In the last week, I’ve watched an episode of Black Books, two episodes of I, Claudius, one of Firefly, half a box set of The West Wing, all peppered here and there with soaps, Holby City (yes, I know) and the mercilessly excellent Murphy’s Law (which you may have guessed is my new favourite thing). Am I adhering to a future model of TV viewing? Plundering the archives and picking and choosing carefully from the first run broadcast menu? I’ll get back to you in five years.
