Audiences Appreciation Gives BBC 'Best Year'

BBC Television is set to deliver the best year of any major UK broadcaster, following strong performances across its channels throughout 2010.
Analysis has revealed that the AI (audience appreciation index) figures have gone up and the portfolio has grown its share to 33.1% - 0.5 points up on last year and now reaches 85.5% of the UK population each week, up from 84.7% last year.
Jana Bennett, Director, BBC Vision, said: "It's been a strong year for BBC Television, with distinctive and uniquely BBC initiatives like the year of science, opera and poetry seasons and the launch of BBC One HD.
"We've seen truly ambitious and challenging moments like Five Daughters and Turn Back Time - The High Street, resulting in a portfolio performance that has bucked the trend and grown its AIs and audience share, whilst keeping public service broadcasting values at its heart."
Bennett also announced that the BBC would be introducing a new way of measuring its audiences, alongside traditional "overnight" methods.
The system, called Live Plus 7, will incorporate the total audience consuming content across all platforms, including live, recordings, narrative repeats, BBC iPlayer and HD for seven days after transmission.
Next year the corporation plan to start revealing this information by publishing some of this Live Plus 7 information each month in a similar fashion to the way we announce BBC iPlayer stats now.
Bennett added: "We know viewing habits are changing and we're changing with them. As our content becomes available in more ways than ever before, traditional methods of overnight measurement are now just one part of the picture.
"The new Live Plus 7 system will allow us to look at the total impact of a show and use this insight to continue creating the programmes our audiences want to see," she said.
Specifically, the figures show that BBC One is still the UK's most-watched channel and has continued to grow in 2010, reaching 44.6 million people each week, up from 44m last year.
BBC Two's share remains ahead of its main competitors in peak hours and showed that the channel reaches 31.3 million people.
BBC Three is now the most-watched digital channel in the hours it broadcasts and the MGEITF Non-Terrestrial Channel of the Year, BBC Three, saw both its share and reach grow in 2010, with the channel now reaching 5.2m, (36.4%) 16-34s each week, up from 4.8m in 2009 and has a share of 5%, up from 4.4% in 2009
BBC Four has increased its reach and share considerably in the hours it broadcasts and has increased from 1% to 1.1% in the hours it broadcasts, and now reaches 8.5 million people each week, up from 7.2m in 2009.
An average of 9.6 million people now tune in each week – up 24% on 2009.
The BBC's children's services are still the nation's favourites with CBBC growing and still reaches more 6-12 year olds than its competitors with CBeebies maintaining its position as the most-watched pre-school channel during the hours it broadcasts.
BBC iPlayer has hit new highs, with 139 million requests last month after it launched an updated design on the web, incorporating new social and personalisation features
Top Gear did well throughout its run and the EastEnders live episode, and every premiership episode of the new Doctor Who series, received over one million requests.
(BMcC/GK)