There seems to be a battle brewing between fans and the media over ratings, highlighted this evening on Twitter when Doctor Who Magazine engaged in an argument with critic Kevin O'Sullivan over how important overnights are versus the consolidated ratings. It went like this:

CameronYardeJunior: @TVKev @DWMtweets In the overnights it did but it won in the official ratings.
Kevin O'Sullivan: @CameronYardeJnr @DWMtweets The official ratings are a distortion. The overnights reflect a programme's true popularity.
DWM: Oh Kevin, you silly man. But we have the consolation that the Doctor will still be on TV long after people stop reading your drivel.
Kevin: @DWMtweets You people are so strange. It's only a TV show. And it's not doing very well.
DWM: @TVKev Being 'strange' is better than being a bad journalist and a liar, in our book. But you live in your little world, we'll live in ours.
Kevin: @theboylatch Those Doctor Who guys are like a cult. Scary.
DWM: @TVKev Be fair mate, we're a magazine about Doctor Who, you're a tabloid. We're about fun sci-fi, you're about lies, tits and phone-hacking.
DWM: Tabloid hacks are a bit easy to wind up, aren't they...? ;)

And so on, with lots of to-ing and thro-ing between the various camps (and that can be read either way!). But what is all this fuss about?

Well, put simply British television ratings are recorded by BARB for the industry, and they provide statistics to broadcasters, journalists, etc. on how programmes fare. You can find all the gory details on their website, but essentially:

Viewing estimates are obtained from a panel of television owning private homes representing the viewing behaviour of the 26 million TV households within the UK. The panel is selected to be representative of each ITV and BBC region, with pre-determined sample sizes. Each home represents, on average, about 5,000 of the UK population.

Now, there are two data sets that are commonly examined; firstly the "overnights" which reflect how people watch television on a daily basis:

Throughout the day the meter system stores all viewing undertaken by the entire household. Every night between 2am and 6am the data is automatically downloaded from every panel home (a process known as ‘polling’). The data is processed to incorporate numerous weighting and grossing variables before being released to the industry as "overnight" minute-by-minute television viewing data at 9.30 each morning. This includes any recorded material played back on the same day as the original transmission, referred to as "VOSDAL" (Viewing-On-Same-Day-As-Live). Broadcasters, amongst others, use overnight data to provide them with an initial idea of how the previous day’s programmes and advertising have performed.

Then there's the report that reflects how people have caught up with the programme since broadcast over the last seven day period:

PVR, DVDR and VCR playback and catch-up VOD viewing via TV set-top boxes is reported if it takes place within 7 days of the original broadcast. This viewing (known as timeshift viewing) is then added to the live data to produce the final, minute-by-minute consolidated audience, available 8 days after the original transmission date. Consolidated data is the ‘BARB Gold Standard’ that is used by the industry to report and trade on.

Right, so that's how it works, so what is the big deal?

Essentially up until recent times the overnights were the dominant indicator of how many people watched a television programme; however, in the last decade there has been a shift in audience perspective as, with the introduction of PVRs (Sky, V+, Freeview+ etc.), the emphasis has changed so that 'modern' people organise their television viewing around their lifestyle rather than the 'old days' when their lifestyle was based around television - you no longer have to be there to watch it otherwise you'd miss it!

What this has meant in real terms is that the overnight figures have steadily declined whereas the weekly figures are remaining more stable - in Doctor Who terms, people may be out at the pub, cinema, etc. on Saturday nights, and so watch on Sunday afternoon instead! These people haven't missed the show, they're just watching when convenient to them - however, the overnight figures do not include them so it seems like a show has less viewers - hence the weekly timeshift figures have become the dominant method of measuring how a programme has performed.

Of course, overnights are still important - they do show who is watching television "live" (within the BARB timeframe) on the day, which is a good indicator on who sat down to tune into a particular show statistically. Of course, combining different programmes at different times of the day into a single "viewing chart" is actually meaningless, except to show perhaps an abnormal event (like a football match, Royal wedding, X-Factor idiot performance, etc.), what is more important is the audience share at the time.

And here we hit the crux of the recent tirade, in that Doctor Who has been knocked off its traditional top spot by All Star Family Fortunes for two weeks in a row, something the media have been bandering about as indicating a decline in Doctor Who viewing. People like Kevin O'Sullivan look at a published chart and go "oh look it's down" - they don't look at other contributing issues, or indeed "Factors" (ahem). Drilling into the data shows that the audiences increase in anticipation for the ITV1 juggernaut and this shears the average into the previous show's favour. So, yes, it looks like Family Fortunes is more popular on the night.

Which it is, of course. That's the way of viewers and we have to live with that.

Now, by the time the weekly figures come out we have a different story, as these show that many more people choose to watch Doctor Who at a later, more convenient time. Which of course makes perfect sense - why would you want to risk your enjoyment of Doctor Who by keeping your eye on the clock in case it overruns and you miss seeing some pratt sing bad karaoke? You wouldn't, of course, you'd record Doctor Who and watch it later. Why not the other way? Good point - but in my view one is a show to sit down, watch, savour, maybe rewind and watch a scene again, and the other is on ITV (tee hee). More seriously, shows like Family Fortunes and X-Factor are "now" shows and don't really have a lifespan beyond their broadcast, whereas shows like Doctor Who do have an extended lifetime far beyond that initial television outing. This can be easily summarised with the last full figures:

Overnights     Timeshifted
The God Complex              5.2m            6.77m
All Star Family Fortunes     5.3m            5.39m

The other thing to consider is advertising revenue - commercial channels are reliant on these to a great extent (adverts, sponsorship, etc.) and likewise the advertisers want to know that the money they spend is going to be seen by the public. Here, the overnights are important as people watching live are more likely to be watching the ads too - as everyone in the video age knows, being able to fast-forward through the ads is a godsend! A show doing badly in the overnights is going to suffer, advertising-wise (we are lucky it isn't quite as cut-throat here in the UK as in US television, but it's still a threat to show's existence). So it matters to ITV, etc. how well their shows perform.

But we are extremely lucky in that we have the BBC, funded completely differently via the license fee and so not subject to advertising whims. It doesn't matter if a show isn't "top dog" on the night as it has no impact on it's success in that respect - the weekly reach will give a better indicator of how a show has done against its opposition. The BBC's remit is to provide balanced entertainment and so it's how a show is received that is more important (the A.I. figures that you hear about, which reflect audience views on enjoyment of a show etc.). Plus, with the advent of the BBC iPlayer, audiences have another way to watch programmes which are not currently included in the BARB statistics (and for Doctor Who these are consistently high, too) - ITV do have their own version which also isn't counted in BARB (but then again I don't know of anyone who willingly sits through those enforced adverts so do they get much revenue that way for it to be truly viable?).


Okay, so you're probably wondering what the point of this post was, now. Well, it is really to say that it is down to the interpretation of statistics at the end of the day. Neither are really wrong, both schools of thought are right in their own way. And arguing from two different perspectives is never going to achieve anything (except fisticuffs and possible slander accusations!).

In terms of Doctor Who, the overall ratings are remaining consistently good and the show is still one of the highest performing programmes on British television - it is still only really beaten by soaps and reality TV shows, there is little competition from most other drama!

And that is why we have nothing to worry about!