Viewers Watch Less Than A Minute A Week Of £2million Livingstone London TV

12.01.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 25th Oct 2004

New figures revealed today by the London Assembly Liberal Democrats show that the first week of 24 hour broadcasting by the Livingstone £2million London TV channel was watched for less than one minute a week by fewer than 0.1% of TV audiences.

The first viewing figures revealed by the British Audience Research Board (BARB) since London TV became a 24hr station, shows that it has the same viewing figures as the Teletext Holiday Channel and the Advert Channel and equals the lowest viewing figures of any cable or satellite channel monitored by BARB. Even Men and Motors and BBC Parliament channels get more viewers.

Commenting on the viewing figures, Liberal Democrat Culture Spokesperson, Dee Doocey, said:-

"Serious questions must be asked of the Mayor as to why £2million of Londoners money has been spent on a TV channel watched by so few people.

"This is more a case of LondOFF TV rather than LondON TV. Putting this overly expensive and under watched TV channel on air has deprived many other valuable cultural projects of much needed funding.

"The Mayor believes that advertising revenue will eventually fund London TV rather than the taxpayer. But why would anyone would want to spend their clients money on buying airspace on a channel that almost no-one tunes into."

ENDS

Notes

London TV has been on preview on Sky channel 166 (called Overload) from 3pm to 9pm daily since 12 July 2004. London TV launched as a 24 hour channel on 20 September 2004.

Figures taken from BARB for August can be found at:-

http://www.barb.co.uk/viewingsummary/weekreports.cfm?report=multichannel

Channels with the same viewing figures include:- Classic FM TV, Fashion TV, Flaunt, Friendly TV, Golf TV, MUTV, Scuzz, The Wrestling Channel and You TV

London TV will initially be available on Sky, free to anyone with a Sky dish and box. Discussions are also underway with ntl, Telewest and Home Choice to carry the channel. The website www.golondon.com has full details of programming, including all event/venue details and programme clips.

At the Mayor's Press Conference on 6th July 2004, it was announced that London TV would cost £2million in the first year. At the press conference it was also shown that the Mayor's office believe that the channel will become self-funding within 3 years and was directly aimed at Londoners first and tourists second. The Press conference can be seen at:- http://www.london.gov.uk/webcasts.jsp