Knightmare.com

Right, last night I happened to be viewing the guestbook and on the Bravenet banner ad at the top there was a link to the Bring Back Knightmare website (what a co-incidence - looks like Alan is paying for some banner ads!). However, even more interestingly there was a link to a TV ratings website which has full viewing figures information for every TV programme on every channel!

I looked up Knightmare and have managed to obtain full ratings for nearly every broadcast since January. I've put it in a table for easy viewing at http://www.knightmare.com/reviews/challenge/ratings.htm.

Those who would like to search and view the info yourself, go to http://macroscope.guerillascope.co.uk/s ... esoftware/ - register your name and e-mail and do a search for 'Knightmare' and click 'Run'.

You can even run graphs of the demographic make up of the viewers for each episode! (although I think I'd need to read up on the terminology to make sense of it all).

The analysis starts here...

It's amazing that the viewing figures can flucctuate by almost 40 000 people on some days!

Do these figures account for recordings of the show as well, because I know some people cant get home by 6 and so tape either the 6 or 1:10 episode.

Yes, I think viewing figures are adjusted to include those taping programmes. The difference in figures from day to day could be explained by the effect of competition from what ever else is on at the same time on other channels.

It's difficult to determine how good these figures are for Challenge without seeing the figures for other shows on the same days, and the audience share. All these figures are available on that website but it would take a long time to do a full analysis.

But yeah, there isn't really a consistency in figures from day to day. For example looking at the 6pm figures, it could be said that Knightmare has a core audience of at least 30,000 viewers who watch every broadcast, and anything extra are the more casual viewers.

The analysis starts here...

*cackle*

Well, everyone knows in time I'll analyse every figure available, but here's my initial thoughts. (Extremely well done to Illusion on finding all this, by the way.)

In the four weeks it's been in the 6pm slot for which we have ratings, the average weekly rating climbed every week. As I mentioned elsewhere, low ratings initially are to be expected when you move something suddenly into a prime time slot. Give them time and they'll increase. Hopefully they'll have increased further since then.

It's also not true to say Fort Boyard has trounced KM in the ratings. As I said before, the 6pm slot has always been a bit dodgy, with the Takeshi's episodes formerly in that slot often rating worse than the programmes both before and after. But the average ratings of the two in their respective slots are very similar indeed.

Great stuff.
Very intresting.. but even if the ratieings change so much from day to day the overall is still pretty close

Just been number-crunching a little bit more. I've really been looking at the figures for the 6pm slot, for which we have 4 weeks worth of data. All these figures are in thousands, and may be incorrect. I haven't checked them, yet, but I thought I'd share.

KM 6pm Average Rating in 1st Week- 36.92
KM 6pm Average Rating in 2nd Week- 46.1
KM 6pm Average Rating in 3rd Week- 49.02
KM 6pm Average Rating in 4th Week- 55.66

So the average ratings have indeed increased week on week.

KM Overall 6pm Average Rating- 46.925

That compares with an average rating for Fort Boyard in the 5-6pm slot on the same days of 46.41. So KM certainly wasn't trounced. In fact, it did slightly better than a show that's been better advertised and that Challenge are so confident about they're making a new series. Yes, I know KM has a slight more peak slot, but still, it's somewhat encouraging. I suppose the other comparable show in peak hours was You Bet, which was on from 7pm, after Takeshi's Castle. In the peak 7pm slot over these four weeks, You Bet attained an average of just 23.19, so no wonder it's been moved since. I wonder if The Crystal Maze will fare better. In any case, it certainly shows that Challenge have had far worse rating problems than any that may be seen to exist with KM.

Clearly Takeshi's Castle does far better than any other show ratings-wise. It also did better than KM does now when it was in the 6pm slot, but you can't show one programme 24 hours a day. (Well, I hope they won't, anyway.) However, before that the weekday 6pm slot was held by You Bet. In that slot it managed an average of 41.74, worse than KM.
 

*gasps in amazement at the masses of time GG devotes to sorting out the Knightmare ratings*

As usual GG you have surpassed us all with your data interpretation skills, and the results are very encouraging!

*Round of applause*

The new week's ratings are out; I'm supposing Illusion might add them to the table, so I won't post them all here.

The results are a bit mixed, really. In the 6pm slot, KM's average rating is 52 (figures in thousands, as always). That's not quite as good as the previous week. On this week it lags well behind Takeshi's Castle at 6.30pm and Fort Boyard (featuring Mellisandre Messenger and Leslie Grimwold) at 5pm.

On the Friday, however, it rated better than both TC and FB. Compared with the other shows in Challenge's evening lineup, its ratings still compare favourably. I averaged up the ratings for the usual evening schedule for the week, and the results are below. (Note that for many shows the average is only based on 3 or 4 of the 5 weekdays, since the schedule changed significantly between Monday and Tuesday, and an alternative programme aired at 7pm on Friday.)

4pm - Bruce Forsyth's Play Your Cards Right - 25.05
4.30pm - Family Fortunes Play Along - 28.4
5pm - Fort Boyard - 62.82
6pm - Knightmare - 52
6.30pm - Takeshi's Castle - 74.12  
7pm - The Crystal Maze - 22.63
8pm - Celebrity TV Bloopers - 25.15
9pm - The Mole - 23.125
10pm - Takeshi's Castle - 30.125

The way I understand it, since KM costs more to buy than most other gameshows it would not only have to equal TC and boyard in ratings to impress them into buying more series. it would have to bring in maybe 80+ thousand figures just to stand a chance.

In saying that however, it does seem to be up there with the best of the challenge programmes. If they do refuse a new series in the current time slot perhaps asking for a less prime location would be acceptable to them.

After all the talk and crap about that mole show they never stop talking about its great to see its rateings are low.lol  maybe next time they will buy a show that WE want to see (knightmare)

im not allowed to watch the mole

my housemates say it's crap and won't let me.  i can only just convince them to watch knightmare*.

*yes, this originally did involve me threatening them with a kitchen knife and vows of chastity

KM costs more than Takeshi's Castle to buy? Is this true?

I wouldn't have thought so myself - think about it, Takeshi's Castle is mostly imported from Japan, so there are many more administrative costs involved - while KM's license is held by Televirtual, a small program-producer. Broadcasters such as the ITV regions (like Granada and LWT, which seem to make up the bulk of Challenge's programming) would charge more for their productions than Televirtual.

however, knightmare was expensive to produce (for a game show) and so i suppose they ask more for the rights?? ??

i also remember bva saying something about equity rights. this would mean that the actors involved with the show must get a part of any money made from the selling of the rights even now. and there are also alot more actors used in KM than most shows. this would all push up the price of KM

and why couldnt hugo et al make do with £5.68 each