STV Edinburgh launched last night with a reach of approximately 166,000 viewers in Edinburgh and the east.
The new channel began broadcasting at 7pm with brand new magazine show The Fountainbridge Show and the opening night audience peaked during the show with around 48,000 viewers.
In addition, the new channel was streamed live 2,000 times on the STV Player with hundreds of catch-up views so far.
STV Edinburgh interacted throughout the day via social media with over 4,000 interactions on Twitter and Facebook and over 1,000 entries to the STV Edinburgh competition.
Bobby Hain, director of channels at STV, said: “The launch night of STV Edinburgh delivered an audience that was in line with the first night of STV Glasgow in June 2014, which is an extremely encouraging start as the channel’s reach is a potential audience of one million compared to two million in Glasgow and the west.
“City TV has proved a popular addition to STV’s range of platforms serving consumers across Scotland and we look forward to building on engaging with our audience across the 12 year licence that has been awarded.”
A survey conducted by ScotPulse on Monday night showed over half (54%) of those that tuned in would recommend it to friends and family, and three out of four viewers (76%) said they will watch again in the future.
Across the 253 BARB channels, the STV city channels (STV Glasgow and STV Edinburgh combined) ranked ninth best watched channel* across all commercial channels within our transmission area across the central belt.
STV Edinburgh began broadcasting at 1900 on Monday 12th January 2015 to a potential audience of one million viewers in the east of Scotland on Freeview channel 23, Sky channel 117 and Virgin channel 159. The new channel is available to watch live online via the STV Player.
STV has also submitted applications to Ofcom to deliver local TV in Aberdeen, Ayr and Dundee.
*Across peak time on launch night, 1900 – 2230