Owner: Virgin Media
Virgin 1 launched in October with the clear intention of challenging Sky One.
Although the channel is carried on Sky, and of course Virgin Media, it is the channel's reach into Freeview homes that is Virgin 1's major opport-unity. It set out to target male viewers that have not, historically, been well served by Freeview's channel line-up.
The channel's main competitors in Freeview homes include Five US, Sky Three and UKTV's male-skewing channel Dave. While Virgin 1 is on a par with Sky Three and outperforming Five US in terms of ratings, it is Dave - which is jointly owned by BBC Worldwide and Virgin Media - that is performing fantastically well.
Programming is, obviously, key to any new channel launch and Virgin 1 had high hopes for some of its shows. In particular, The Riches starring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver was expected to perform well. Indeed, the first episode achieved an impressive audience of almost 650,000. However, by mid-November, the show's ratings had dropped and it had lost more than 40% of its key male 25-54 audience.
Other Virgin 1 shows, such as Seinfeld and That '70s Show, have not performed as well as expected and the weekday early peak schedule of Fresh Prince of Bel Air and World's Most Amazing Videos is uninspiring.
Jonathan Webb, managing director of Virgin TV, is looking to improve on the channel's comedy output.
However, I expect that the Sarah Connor Chronicles will become the pillar of the channel in 2008 (the strike by US writers permitting).
This US import will be key to attracting a new audience to Virgin 1. If this works and Virgin 1 can build on its early promise, then the future of the channel looks bright.
- Review by James Temperley, TV director, Initiative.
.jpg)
.jpg)