Audiences across the Pond

Strange. The Michael Jackson documentary was very successful in the UK drawing 14 million, while it was also seen as doing well in the US where it was seen by 27 million.
So a country five times the size of ours achieves just about double the audience. Let’s put this in context. The latest BARB chart (as published in Broadcast) has Coronation Street sitting at the top with an impressive 17.5 million. 14 million would put the Jacko doc comfortably in the top ten, and that’s without video watching added in – which it will be. I would conservatively put it fifth in the top 50, taking account of a particularly sensational Coronation Street storyline at the moment.
In the US, the Nielson ratings show that the top show for the latest available week is CSI with 27.5 million viewers. That means that the Jackson doc is going to be running very tightly with CSI for top show. In a quieter week, maybe it’d have done well better in the UK too.
Twice the ratings, five times the country. It’s an interesting statistic. And in the US, they’ve just entered “sweeps” which means all the networks pull off original programming as they fight for audience share with which to set ad rates.


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