FEWER THAN 500 PEOPLE AN HOUR TUNE INTO £630,000 LIVINGSTONE LONDON TV CHANNEL

12.01.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 14th Jun 2005

New figures revealed today by the London Assembly Liberal Democrats show that, in the last four months, the 24-hour London TV channel, funded with £630,000 of Londoners taxpayers money, was watched on average by just 481 people an hour.

An analysis by the London Assembly Liberal Democrats of the British Audience Research Board (BARB) viewing figures since the 24th January 2005 shows that:

· On average 11,555 people watch London TV every day for more than 3 minutes

· Teletext Holidays and Manchester United TV have more viewers

· On the best weekly ratings in the 18 most recent weeks analysed, London TV was 159th out of 166 channels monitored by BARB

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

"Serious questions must be asked of the Mayor as to why more than half a million pounds of Londoners money has been spent on a TV channel watched by almost no-one.

"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 to editor

London TV has been on preview on Sky channel 244. London TV launched as a 24 hour channel on 20 September 2004.

Question number 1543/2004

Meeting date 17/11/2004

What is the total cost of London TV to the London Development Agency? Have they received any benefits in kind from the GLA or LDA? And what were there value?

Answer by Ken Livingstone (2nd Term)

The London Development Agency is investing, as part of the three year grant agreement with Visit London, a total of £630k in London TV. This investment will take place between 2004-07 and is capped at that amount within the Grant Agreement, averaging around £210k per year of the grant.

Visit London is receiving no benefit-in-kind from either the GLA or the LDA. All support for Visit London is in the form of funding and is contained within the three year grant agreement between the LDA and Visit London.

Figures taken from BARB can be found at:-

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

Average Daily Reach* Weekly Reach* Average Weekly Viewing Share

000s % 000s % Hrs:Mins per person %

29-May-05 9 * 63 0.2 * *

22-May-05 8 * 42 0.1 * *

15-May-05 12 * 72 0.2 * *

08-May-05 18 * 116 0.3 * *

01-May-05 14 * 91 0.2 * *

24-Apr-05 14 * 68 0.2 * *

17-Apr-05 16 * 107 0.3 * *

10-Apr-05 8 * 55 0.1 * *

03-Apr-05 13 * 87 0.2 * *

27-Mar-05 10 * 71 0.2 * *

20-Mar-05 11 * 66 0.2 * *

13-Mar-05 3 * 22 0.1 * *

06-Mar-05 10 * 62 0.2 * *

27-Feb-05 18 * 119 0.3 * *

20-Feb-05 10 * 64 0.2 * *

13-Feb-05 11 * 64 0.2 * *

06-Feb-05 13 * 84 0.2 * *

30-Jan-05 10 * 67 0.2 * *

Totals since 24th January '05 208 * 1320 - * *

AVERAGE 11.56 * 73.33 0.2 * *

Average Daily/Weekly Reach is the percentage or number of the UK population in private households (excluding guest viewing) who viewed each channel for 3 consecutive minutes or more during the week/average day.

At the Mayor's Press Conference on 6th July 2004, it was 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.