Channel 4 is the only major broadcaster to grow overall viewing across streaming and linear in 2024, with a 32% rise in viewer minutes according to new Barb data.
The broadcaster’s streaming audience has also been growing faster than any of the other major streaming-only platforms.
Barb data from January to June also reveals that the channel is successfully growing its overall audience while migrating viewers to streaming.
The figures show that Channel 4 streaming has received 7.3 billion viewers minutes so far in 2024 (up 32% year on year), contributing to a 4 billion increase in overall viewing minutes across linear and streaming.
Growth across streaming is 29%, particularly driven by the 16-34 age bracket – for which 40% of views come via streaming.
The growth is largely driven by hit shows including Gogglebox (4.8 million), 24 hours in Police Custody (4.5 million), The Push: Murder On The Cliff (3.5 million), To Catch A Copper (3.2 million), which have a raft of hits with eight shows attracting more than three million average views.
Channel 4 also trebled its social TV viewings and digital-first hits across YouTube, with full length shows helping to drive this.
It follows in the wake of some tough times for the broadcaster, which had to cut a raft of jobs amid a broadcast advertising slump. Digital revenues now account for 27% of the broadcaster’s total revenues.
Subscribe to Marketing Beat for FREE
Sign up here to get the latest Christmas ads and more sent straight to your inbox each morning
It also showed a record high of 164 billion viewer minutes, which represents a 2.5% year-on-year increase, while Barb data shows major commercial broadcasters on average posted a 3% year on year drop in overall viewing minutes.
Channel 4 chief content officer Ian Katz said: “It’s great to see Channel 4’s long-term strategy of prioritising digital viewing and investing in distinctive, British streaming-first content bearing fruit.”
“This data shows that, even in a challenging market, we can successfully grow our overall audience by attracting new digital natives and migrating existing viewers to digital platforms.”
“At the heart of this is our streaming-first content strategy – a unique blend of distinctive drama such as The Gathering, must watch documentaries like The Push and The Fall plus compulsive reality such as Married At First Sight.”
