Channel celebrates year of success
New York – January 2, 2013 – Doctor Who: The Snowmen delivered record ratings for BBC AMERICA, rounding out a year of success. The Christmas Day special (9P-10:20P) was the channel’s best ever telecast in demo, delivering 1.434 million total viewers and 807K/.95 A25-54 in Live+SD, up 54% from last year’s Christmas episode in total viewers and up 60% among A25-54. The show was the channel’s second best telecast ever in P2+ L+SD, after the Doctor Who S7.1 premiere (1.555 million, 9/1/12).
BBC AMERICA General Manager, Perry Simon, said: “It feels exactly right to be ending the year on a ratings high with Doctor Who. The show has really delivered for us this year on every level. Cinematic scale, superb acting, cracking storylines and a growing band of dedicated fans – we can’t wait for the next series in spring 2013.”
Doctor Who also claimed some firsts in the publishing world. It became the first British show to claim the front cover of Entertainment Weekly in August and won TV Guide Magazine’s Fan Favorite cover in December, beating out The Walking Dead and Vampire Diaries among others.
As 2012 drew to a close, BBC AMERICA had its best quarter ever in 3Q12 and is on pace to celebrate its highest ratings year ever. It was also one of the fastest growing networks in US distribution, up 11% year on year and now in 80.4m homes (up from 72.1 last year).
The year saw BBC AMERICA launch a raft of original shows including its first-ever original scripted drama, Copper. The show became the channel’s highest rated drama series and averaged 1.3m total viewers throughout its 10 week run. Season 2 begins filming in February.
The long-running Top Gear franchise continued to grow, with Season 18 averaging the series’ biggest audience yet among A25-54, and the channel aired the second season of spin-off series Richard Hammond’s Crash Course. Season 19 of Top Gear is scheduled to air in Winter 2013.
The channel’s Queen’s Jubilee coverage was also a highlight of the year reaching 3.6 million unique viewers. BBC AMERICA co-productions, The Hour and Luther, both received Golden Globe nominations with Luther’s Idris Elba taking home the Globe for best actor in a mini-series or motion picture made for television.
BBC AMERICA delivers U.S. audiences high-quality, innovative and intelligent programming. Established in 1998, it has been the launch pad for talent embraced by American mainstream pop culture, including Ricky Gervais, Gordon Ramsay, Graham Norton, and successful programming formats including ground-breaking non-scripted television like Top Gear and top-rated science-fiction likeDoctor Who. Owned by BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, BBC AMERICA has attracted both critical acclaim and major awards including an Emmy®, five Golden Globes® and ten Peabody Awards. The channel attracts one of cable’s most affluent and educated audiences and is available on cable and satellite TV in more than 80.4 million homes. It broadcasts in both standard and high-definition, with content available On Demand across all major digital platforms. Online, www.bbcamerica.com is the place to go to dig deeper into pop culture with a British twist. Find out more by visiting www.press.bbcamerica.com or follow us on www.twitter.com/bbcamerica.
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