Research: C4's Paralympic coverage changes attitudes

8 September 2012

As Channel 4's broadcast of the London 2012 Paralympics draws to a conclusion, audience research carried out for Channel 4 by BDRC Continental and YouGov reveals the impact of the Games on perceptions of disability and Paralympic sport in the UK.

• 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

By the time the closing ceremony concludes on Sunday evening Channel 4 will have broadcast almost 500 hours of coverage, an increase of 400% on the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing.

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

Channel 4's Chief Creative Officer, Jay Hunt said: "Over the last week and a half, the superhuman achievements of the elite athletes at the London 2012 Paralympic Games have captivated the British public. I'm delighted that we've been able to bring a new audience to the Paralympics and, more importantly, that our coverage has played a part in delivering a lasting legacy in changing people's perceptions of both disability and disabled sport."    

 

Record audiences for Paralympic sport

The 2012 Paralympic Games have brought record audiences to Channel 4, with coverage reaching 37 million people across the Games (to Thursday 6 September).

The opening ceremony was watched by a peak audience of 11.2 million viewers - Channel 4's biggest audience in over 10 years - with Jonnie Peacock's gold medal win in the T44 100m on Thursday 6th attracting the biggest ever Paralympic sports audience in the UK with a peak of 6.3 million viewers.

A peak audience of 3.6 million viewers were watching last night (Friday 7th September) as Oscar Pistorius won his 400m T44 heat.

The Paralympics coverage has helped Channel 4 average an all-day share of 11.6% across the nine days of the Games - up by +82% on the channel's 12 month average.

There have been over one million live streams from Channel4.com/Paralympics; over 1.8 million unique users of the website and 10 million page views.  There have been over 228,000 downloads of Channel 4's Paralympics app and over 5.5 million page views across mobile.

 

Investing in new disabled talent

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.

 

Opening up Paralympic sport to a new audience

As part of its coverage, Channel 4 launched ‘Lexi Decoder' to help viewers understand the complex Paralympic classification system and open the sport up to a new audience. 94% of viewers felt Channel 4's coverage explained the Paralympics well with three in five viewers (61%) saying they understand the 'Lexi Decoder' classification system.1

More than four in five viewers (83%) agreed they know more about Paralympic sports and over four in five viewers (83%) agreed that they are more familiar with disabled athletes as a result of watching Channel 4's coverage.2

 

Notes to Editors

Channel 4 has undertaken 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+).