Throughout the month of December 2008, UKTV’s portfolio of 10 channels was watched by 36.5 million viewers, achieving a total share of the broadcast market of 4.23% in multichannel homes – increasing UKTV’s reach by 6% year on year.

UKTV’s Controller Matthew Littleford says: “Christmas is historically a time of year when people love watching the best TV with their families. This unprecedented growth proves that, despite an increasingly fragmented market, it is still possible to appeal to viewers and increase share by investing in strong brands, creative scheduling and the highest quality content.”

Ratings across the broadcaster’s portfolio were up 10% on Christmas Day, 11% on Boxing Day, 8% on New Year’s Day and a massive 37% on New Year’s Day in multichannel homes year on year.

Growth throughout the Christmas and New Year period was primarily driven by UKTV’s recently rebranded entertainment portfolio – G.O.L.D., Watch, Dave and Alibi – which saw total audiences swell by 11% year on year (+19% in pay TV homes) during this two week festive season. On Christmas Eve, three of these UKTV channels ranked within the Top 10 in pay TV, immediately behind the five terrestrial channels - G.O.L.D. was 7th with 2.22% share, Dave was 9th with 1.44% and Watch was 10th with 1.41%.

UKTV’s Director of Entertainment Christian Drobnyk adds: “We’ve enjoyed a fantastically successful festive period across all four of our entertainment channels. During this time, over three million more individuals have sampled our new channel Watch and early indications show they’re coming back for more, with audiences up 50% on launch.”

On Christmas Day, comedy channel G.O.L.D. actually beat terrestrial channel five to rank as the 5th most watched channel in pay TV homes, with a share of 2.61%. Its top rating programme of the day was Only Fools and Horses at 3.45pm with 300,000 viewers. Across the Christmas and New Year period, the highest rating show across the UKTV network was Wallace and Gromit: A Close Shave on G.O.L.D. on Christmas Eve at 6.15pm with 359,000 viewers and 2.29% share.

During December, 15.4million individuals tuned in to Watch, with New Year’s Eve proving to be the strongest performing day share-wise – 1.75% in pay TV, placing it in 8th place beaten only by the terrestrials, ITV2 and Sky1. Programmes driving this were Outtake TV, Jumanji and Spider-Man 2.

UKTV continues its network rebrand to future proof its business by creating a portfolio of multiplatform brands with the re-launch of UKTV Documentary, UKTV People and UKTV History as Eden, Blighty and Yesterday respectively in the first quarter of 2009. The final phase of its ambitious rebrand will be completed in Q2 of this year with the re-launch of its lifestyle offerings.


Notes to Editors
Ratings
All year on year ratings figures are sourced from BARB for December 2008 vs December 2007.
For Watch only, December 2008 vs October 2008 (from launch on 7th October 2008).
All figures are individuals in either multichannel or pay TV homes, as specified.