Paralympics closing ceremony watched by 7.7 million on Channel 4

10 September 2012

A peak audience of 7.7 million viewers watched last night's Channel 4 coverage of the London 2012 Paralympic Games closing ceremony.  The full closing ceremony programme from 7.00pm to 11.10pm was watched by 5.9 million viewers, 26 percent share of the television audience.

Coverage of the final day of the Paralympic Games made Channel 4 the most watched television channel across the whole day - with a total share of 16.4 percent; versus 15.9 percent share for BBC ONE and 13.4 percent share for ITV1.  Channel 4 was also the most watched channel in terms of 16-34s and ABC1s.

The closing ceremony was the second most-watched moment from Channel 4's coverage of the 2012 Paralympic Games, after the opening ceremony which peaked with 11.2 million and Jonnie Peacock's 100m T44 win on Thursday which attracted a peak audience of 6.3 million viewers - the biggest UK audience for live Paralympic sport ever.  On the same ‘thriller Thursday' David Weir's T54 800m gold was watched by a peak audience of 5.5 million and Hannah Cockroft's 200m T34 win attracted a peak audience of 4.1 million.   Alan Oliveira's victory over Oscar Pistorius in the 200m T44 on Sunday was watched by a peak audience of 4.4 million viewers.

Across the Paralympics as a whole, Channel 4's coverage reached 39.9 million people - over 69 percent of the UK population.  This compares to a reach of 20.5 millon for the BBC's coverage of the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games.

Jay Hunt, Channel 4's Chief Creative Officer said: "Last night's closing ceremony was a suitably spectacular end to a fantastic London 2012 Paralympic Games and I'm thrilled that, over the course of the last eleven days, Channel 4's coverage has engaged more people than ever before in disabled sport."

Channel 4 released new research from BDRC Continental and YouGov over the weekend which showed that two in three viewers feel more positive towards disabled people as a result of watching coverage of the Paralympic Games.

Headlines from the research include:

• Two thirds of viewers (65%) feel the coverage of the Paralympics has had a favourable impact on their perceptions towards people with disabilities.1
• More than four in five Adults (82%) agreed disabled athletes are as talented as able-bodied athletes, rising to 91% among those who had watched Channel 4's coverage of the Paralympics.2
• Almost two thirds of Adults (64%) agreed that the Paralympics is as good as the Olympics, rising to 79% among those who had watched Channel 4's coverage of the Paralympics. 2
• Two thirds of viewers (68%) felt the coverage of the Paralympics has had a favourable impact on their perceptions to disabled sport. 1
• Around two in three viewers (69%) said this is the first time they have ever made an effort to watch the Paralympics, while half (50%) said this is the first Paralympics they have ever watched. 67% said they watched more than they expected to.1

Since 2010, as part of Channel 4's pledge to bring Paralympic sport to a mainstream audience and add authenticity, knowledge and experience to its programming, the broadcaster has invested over £600,000 in identifying, training and developing ten new disabled presenters and reporters who have played major roles in the channel's coverage of the 2012 Paralympic Games.   80% of viewers enjoyed the fact that there were disabled presenters on screen in Channel 4's coverage of the Paralympics1 and almost three quarters of the audience (74%) agreed that they enjoyed the matter of fact discussions about disability.2

Building on this, Channel 4 has committed a further £250,000 across the next two years, to both support and develop the existing disabled presenters across a range of television genres and to continue to identify new opportunities for disabled talent on-screen.

 

Notes to Editors

Channel 4 undertook two pieces of research:

1.                A BDRC Continental daily survey for Channel 4 of 1833 viewers, representative of UK adults - undertaken between 29th August and 6th September 2012

2.                A YouGov Plc survey:  total sample size was 1027 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 6th - 7th September 2012 .  The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).