Much has been debated in the last few weeks of the Cucumber trilogy’s success after viewer figures were
released last week. The new Russell T Davies drama’s pilot was watched by 1.2
million viewers, with just over 400,000 tuning in for its E4 spin-off show
Banana. The channel four drama starred a
reasonably decent cast, Vincent Franklin from The Thick Of It and Twenty
Twelve and Julie Hesmondhalgh of Coronation Street fame. Yet this could
only bring in a 5.5% share of the total audience at 9pm on Thursday night. Greeted by reviewers as ‘disappointing TV’ and to others
‘terrifically entertaining’, the show was down 34% on Channel four's three-month
slot average. However Banana, Cucumber’s sister show, had 408,000, 80%
up on E4’s slot average.
So why was Banana more
successful than Cucumber for its
channel? Well, it comes down to scheduling. Channel Four decided to put Cucumber up against a tough crowd. The all conquering heavy
weight Death in Paradise, which brought in 6.5 million viewers, a 29% share of audiences, was the big success of the night. With Bring back Borstal , ITV’s primetime competition, similar to Channel Four also struggling
against the heavy weight with just 1.7 million, 6.9% of overall audience.The most watched pay-TV programme of the night went to Ross Kemp's documentary series Extreme World on
Sky1, a staggering 2.4% of total viewers, big numbers for a pay for channel. BBC Three also
did well on Thursday having its new reality documentary Bangkok Airport pull in 821,000, almost double its three month
average.
Looking at Channel Four's viewing figures for this week, the original drama Cucumber sits low at 29 below everyday soap Hollyoaks.
Its seems that for Channel Four, usually keeping the 9pm
Thursday slot for reality and documentary programming, placing a new
eccentric drama instead has been a step too far for the forward thinking channel. Compare this to E4 with its
10pm Thursday night slot almost always being made for new British dramas appealing to
young audiences such as Skins and Hollyoaks Later. And also American import
Looking, on at ten thirty on Thursday nights on Sky 1 which is a gay drama hugely similar Cucumber, which is critically acclaimed and bringing in a decent 130,000 a week.
However this wasn't simply bad scheduling, Channel Four are not trying to make a drama to compete against the BBCs but instead they are making programs that are specifically aiming at a niche audience.This became clear when just last week Channel Four released its very own Diversity Charter, which informed the public it would in the next year have more minority, disabled and LGBT characters and content throughout its plethora of programmes. This comes at a time where Channel Four, having 32% of total television audiences in 1997 now has a measly 12.5%. It seems Channel Four are beginning to set up a new system of scheduling, in which they aim at niche audiences.
This is a rather daring tactic for the already struggling channel, but could
really work in Channel Fours favour as it seems to be working for online streaming already. A major category in all online streaming
services, (Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, Fandor etc) is LGBT. Here the niche LGBT audience is being directly targeted, something Channel Four are now beginning to use themselves and with good reason.
When I gathered data from a survey of a group of twenty LGBT identified individuals, all twenty agreed that the main reason for them having or wanting a subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime or Hulu Plus was its huge variety of LGBT content. Many stating in the comment section that these sites were the only way to get this kind of content.
Though not the entire audience for online streaming, the LGBT audience does seem to be a part of online streaming platforms success. Netflix alone has fifty million subscribers, if just 5 percent where LGBT, thats two and a half million viewers Channel Four could invest in.
When I gathered data from a survey of a group of twenty LGBT identified individuals, all twenty agreed that the main reason for them having or wanting a subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime or Hulu Plus was its huge variety of LGBT content. Many stating in the comment section that these sites were the only way to get this kind of content.
Though not the entire audience for online streaming, the LGBT audience does seem to be a part of online streaming platforms success. Netflix alone has fifty million subscribers, if just 5 percent where LGBT, thats two and a half million viewers Channel Four could invest in.
Success or not Cucumber was
ground breaking broadcast television. And
even if Channel Four may regrets some their daring decisions, this is one they should be proud of. We could argue
all day long of the shows representation of gay men, to sex-obsessed narcissists to sad creepy men. Yet Cucumber and its spin off shows are programs that need to be
tried and need to fail to be able to give audiences a wide variety of LGBT characters that eventually won't be stereotypes but instead fully rounded characters. So I challenge television
programmers to take notice of Channel Four and dare to make these shows, not once every fifteen years like we have
had to wait for Cucumber but consistently to reflect what the real world really looks like. Not to mention if channel Four can pull in this huge LGBT online audience, it could help put itself back on the map once more.
For all todays blog's facts and figures:
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