TWENTY-ONE shows on the BBC’s new £32 million Scotland channel failed to attract any viewers at all.
New figures also revealed that last month included one day on which the average audience in the key evening period was only 7200 viewers.
The dire viewing statistics were revealed by the Mail on Sunday, and come from research by Overnights.TV for the British Audiences Research Board (Barb).
They cover the period between the show launching on February 24 to June 2.
A BBC Scotland spokesman rejected the criticism, pointing to the times the shows were at.
They said: “It is not unusual for digital television channels outwith the main five to occasionally record zero audiences in Scotland under the Barb system.
“Of the 21 instances during our course hours when zero audiences were recorded, seven of these were for one-minute editions of The
Seven just as the channel comes on-air.
“The remaining 14 were all after 11pm, when television audiences to all channels are in sharp decline.”
The Seven and The Collective were among the 21 shows which had a broadcast with no registered viewers.
The “core evening hours” of May 1 saw an average audience of just 7200 – the worst-performing day.
The highest average audience during the core hours of 7pm to midnight since the channel’s launch was 237,000, achieved on opening night.
Last month saw reports emerge of tensions at the channel over plummeting viewing figures.
Key presenters of flagship news show The Nine were reportedly considering walking away from BBC Scotland, after the show’s audience fell to just 4000 on one night.
The Sunday Times said there were fears among insiders that chief news correspondent James Cook and Martin Geissler, who presents, could leave the channel.
They cited a source who said: “There is a poisonous atmosphere in the newsroom.
“Staff who get big audiences are being overlooked in favour of new inexperienced staff on the channel which nobody watches.”
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