UK Documentary & Lifestyle Broadcast Ratings. The Top 100 for 1H 2019. Notorious British Crime Delivers

It’s always a pleasure to share the UK’s highest-rated documentary and unscripted programs.

Here is my ratings snapshot for 1H 2019.

• #1-50 are followed by my brief Takeaways.
• Then #51-100.

Why UK Matters!

• The UK is the #2 English-speaking television market.
• It enjoys a well-funded Factual sector that has been a creative innovator for generations.
• The data is relevant beyond the UK because many of my readers are seeking international co-pro’s, pre-buys and format licenses.
• They are responding to the disruptive rise of SVOD, Netflix and other online viewing platforms.
• For the broadcasters, this dramatic shift translates into slowly shrinking audiences, budgets and commissioning pipelines.

The UK Documentary & Hobbies Top 100
Jan 1 – June 30, 2019

• The ‘000 P4+’ column refers to viewers 4 years and older in thousands.
• Its an important measure of audience scale, but not necessarily of value because the commercial channels target specific demo’s.
• Share refers to the program’s share of television sets in use at that time.
• The data refers to highest single episode in a series.

TAKEAWAYS

Crime Pays

• Great British crimes and criminality are revisited in the Top 50: the Hatton Garden heist, The Murder Of Jill Dando, Fred & Rose West, and even Jack The Ripper.
• Crime and punishment are covered in Psychopaths (35) and Custody / Reality  (46)
• Celebrity meets criminal behavior in a U.S. import Leaving Neverland: Michael Jackson & Me (10).
• There’s lot’s more True Crime in the 51-100 list below, beginning with Code Blue: Murder (51) and Serial Killer confessions (52).

Royals Off The Calendar

• The Windsors have dominated the Top 100 list for years with their births, weddings, birthdays, anniversaries and funerals.
• But not in 1H19.
• Meghan’s baby doesn’t rank until #53.
• Victoria’s Palace is #47, though perhaps this is Victoria Beckham?
• Cantering in at #49 is Her Majesty’s Cavalry.

Natural History Live

• Blue Planet Live with David Attenborough scored at #4 with 5.7 million viewers.
• Channels will rely increasingly on big LIVE events to compete with the vast entertainment inventories of the streamers like Netflix and soon Disney (with Nat Geo).
• The channels need to crack LIVE formats in genres like Natural History to complement their dominance in Sports.
  • For example, A&E enjoys an international hit with Live PD.
  • And we covered  SafariLIVE, a unique 24×7 operation (Nat Geo Wild U.S.) that engages social media enthusiasts as well as scheduled audiences.
• It was otherwise a meagre Top 50 half-year for the Wildlife genre, even for popular Pets programs: Britain’s Top 100 Dogs Live is #45. (Note LIVE!).

Celebrity / Pop Culture

• Celebrity hosted documentaries and fundraisers did well, from Harry’s Heroes, Climbing Kilimanjaro, Celebrity Apprentice to Real Monty spinoffs, and more.

Franchises / Formats

• I often congratulate the BBC’s lower-cost nostalgic franchises Countryfile and Antiques Roadshow for powerhouse scores, decade after decade.
• Baking, lost families and other formats continue to thrive, though I’m waiting and waiting for a new British format as fresh as Gogglebox was years ago.
• Note also that Channel 5 dropped out of the Top 100, with Ben Fogle: New Lives In The Wild at #131.

The Masterpiece

• 63 Up (#11) is the latest visit to Seven Up (1964), Michael Apted’s revelation of childhood and of how children think about class and society, and of whether our destiny is determined by that tender age.
• I was first taken in by Seven Up during a teacher training workshop at Erskine House in Lorne, steps off the beach where I had learned to surf and play beach cricket during my own childhood summers.
• Seven Up has been on my Top 10 Documentary list ever since, and I was just thinking that its on my own Top 10 of all great British creative works of my lifetime.
• It makes me happy to see that the UK audience in its 2.7 millions still loves to follow the Seven Up children as they approach old age.

The UK Documentary & Hobbies Top 100
Jan 1 – June 30, 2019

Audience Analysis

• My colleague Byron Media’s Dr John Morse is closely tracking SVOD ratings tools that are being developed by research firms, as well as deep dives into U.S. ratings for producers who are developing pitches or negotiating series extensions. Read more here.