Letter: Young audiences for television

Sir: Lisa O'Kelly is right to observe that we finally have a challenge on our hands in Bill Hilary's appointment as head of youth programmes at Channel 4 ('Youngsters just wanna have fun', 22 July) - a challenge we welcome.

However, there is a lack of consistency in her use of peak and average viewing figures. The 'healthy' 2.6 million viewers she quotes for the last series of The Word was a peak audience for a single programme, as distinct from the averages quoted for BBC youth shows.

To set the record straight, perhaps Ms O'Kelly would like to note that The Word's average audience for the first showing across the last series was 1.7 million - which compares less than favourably with averages of 1.8 million for Reportage, 2.3 million for Rough Guides and 2.4 million for The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

Yours sincerely,

TONY MOSS

Deputy Head, Youth And

Entertainment Features

BBC Television

London, W12

22 July