Success of Merseyside Detectives propels Channel 4 to strongest streaming growth

17 September 2024

Channel 4’s streaming growth continues to outpace the biggest streaming services*, with minutes viewed up 25% (to 42 billion) between January and August. In August alone, total viewer minutes grew 11% year on year (to 4.4 billion viewer minutes) driven by documentary Merseyside Detectives: The Murders of Ashley and Olivia.

Latest Barb data also shows the channel continues to grow its overall audience, with a 4% year on year increase in viewing across streaming and linear combined in August, set against an average 10% drop among commercial PSBs.

The data – published as the channel pursues its Fast Forward strategy to become the first public service streamer – also shows the proportion of total viewing via Channel 4 streaming is up by 24% year on year over the first eight months of 2024.

The most-viewed show on Channel 4 streaming in August was Merseyside Detectives: The Murders of Ashley and Olivia (191 million viewer minutes), with an average 28 day audience per episode across the series on linear and streaming of 2.1 million across August. Over four episodes, the docu-series highlighted the toll of gun and gang crime on innocent lives and communities in Merseyside after Ashley Dale and nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel were shot dead at home, victims of feuding gangs.

Meanwhile, in August Channel 4’s live coverage for the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games averaged 1.4 million views across linear and streaming – the best Paralympics Opening Ceremony since London 2012.

Kiran Nataraja, Director of Streaming & Content Strategy, Channel 4, said: “The success of Merseyside Detectives underlines what PSBs uniquely offer streamers: content which reflects Britain and impacts the national conversation. Our strong performance in August, with success across a wide range of titles, also demonstrates the clear and successful approach set out in our Fast Forward strategy.”

ENDS

 

Notes to Editors

• *Channel 4 year on year streaming growth (viewer minutes) Jan-Aug (+25%) - strongest of the top seven streamers based on viewer minutes: BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon.
• Data is based on Barb, the broadcast industry’s standard for determining what people are watching, integrating people-based panel data with census-level online viewing data.  
• Channel 4 audience performance updates over the past year are based on viewer minutes data
• Channel 4 has more than 30 million registered streaming users