Pregnancy information and advice on Sky television: an evaluation

This paper is one of a series produced as part of an evaluation of a number of digital interactive television (DiTV) health pilots funded by the Department of Health during 2001/2002. This paper is concerned with two pregnancy health services produced by Channel Health and hosted on Sky television. The study aimed to discover the success or otherwise of health information on pregnancy in this form and on this medium or "platform". In particular we were interested in what kinds of people on the broader national stage viewed the Bush Babies programme. Data were obtained through a telephone questionnaire of Channel Health users. More than 250 people took part. More than 175 000 households watched the programmes, a large audience for this type of programme. Bush Babies attracted a sizeable audience with over a quarter of Channel Health viewers in this study having seen it. There proved to be marked differences between the types of people using the service and in the patterns of their use--and not always in the ways one might have expected. As expected, people who were single, older or male were less likely to view Bush Babies, while younger, married or cohabitants and females were more likely to watch the programme. More unexpectedly, perhaps, the fact that the person was pregnant was not a predictor of whether they saw a Bush Babies programme or the number of the programmes watched.