2. Friday Night Dinner – Institution
• Channel 4
• Publicly-owned, commercially-funded,
non-profit
• Remit to be:
– Innovative
– Experimental and distinctive
– Champion innovation in TV
• Nurtures and grows new ideas, formats, views
and voices, faces, talent, audiences and
production companies
3. Friday Night Dinner – Institution
• Work with more independent
production companies than any other
terrestrial channel
• Known for taking risks with broadcasting
• More new programme ideas tried each year
than any other UK channel
• First broadcaster in the world to offer on-
demand TV service
• 1/3 of its audience is 16-34
4. Friday Night Dinner – Institution
• Popper Pictures
• Big Talk Productions
• 3 series
• First series outperformed its usual 10pm time
slot viewing figures (1.5m)
• Broadcast in 16 different countries
• Commissioned for one series version in US
• “We’re all just idiot children trying to be
grown up” – Tamsin Grieg
5. Friday Night Dinner – Institution
• 20th June 2014 – The Girlfriend
• 1.56m viewers
• Second most popular comedy in that time slot
during that week
• C4 had first and second most popular comedies in
that time slot (8 out of 10 cats does countdown
no 1)
• Beat QI on BBC2 – 1.34m
• Only competition was:
– BBC News (BBC1) 4.92m
– ITV News (ITV) 1.77m
6. Friday Night Dinner – Scheduling
• Post-watershed – 9pm
• Prime Time – when networks
battle over the 18-49 ABC1 audience
• Why do you think FND wants to target ABC1?
7. Friday Night Dinner – Scheduling
• Typically comedy is shown on C4 from
10pm until late (sometimes earlier
on Fridays)
• FND Series 1 on Fridays on Channel 4 at 10.30pm
• Hammocking – putting a ‘new’ show between
two ‘strong’ shows in the hope viewers will be
too lazy to switch over and watch the show
anyway
• Popular technique with new shows that haven’t
built an audience yet
• FND was ‘hammocked’ when it first aired
8. Friday Night Dinner – Scheduling
• FND Series 2+3 on Sundays Channel
4 at 10.00pm
• Why the change to the schedule?
Why move FRIDAY night dinner to SUNDAY?
• Typically C4 shows movies on Sunday evenings
from 9pm
• Pre-echo – putting a less popular show on before
a popular one to catch viewers tuning in early
• Stand alone show – avoiding competition
• Counter-programming – scheduling a programme
to draw viewers away from other stations (BBC
MotD, News, ITV drama, etc.)
9. Friday Night Dinner – Scheduling
• Targeting specific audiences
– Family audience on a Sunday evening –
traditionally time when all together
– Potentially offensive to Jewish – Friday night dinner
moved to Sunday (religious implications)
– Relaxing / unwinding before bed – chilling out before
return to grind on a Monday
– Not hitting original C4 target market of
16-34 yr olds on a Friday night as they’re typically
‘out’ at 10pm on a Friday
– Post watershed so older audience (language and adult
themes)
10. Friday Night Dinner – Scheduling
• FND can now be viewed on All 4 –
on demand service
• All three series are available to watch
• Why does C4 want FND available to all?
– Not massively popular so encouraging new views
– Encourages audiences to re-view before new
series
– Encourages audiences to get excited before new
series is released
– Channel loyalty and good will
11. Friday Night Dinner – Scheduling
QUESTION:
How does FND fit in with the ‘brand identity’ of Channel
4 and its scheduling? (15 marks)
Remember to include:
• Details about C4 and WHY you think people watch the channel
• HOW FND matches C4s aims and responsibilities
• Discussion of C4 target audience and how it matches FND’s target
audience
• FND scheduling details (times, days) and WHY it was scheduled then –
including any reasons why scheduling might have changed
• Use specific examples to support points (e.g. post watershed for adult
language and themes – demonstrate which ones from the episode)
• 15 minutes
