UK SATELLITE TELEVISION
Recently appointed head of programming at BSkyB, David Elstein set out to show how much the television environment has changed since the launch of Sky and BSB in 1989 and how increasing competition is causing a growing upheaval in the relationship between consumers and suppliers of television.
He points out that BSkyB has pioneered the introduction of satellite delivered pay television in the UK, achieving a 17% penetration and changing the face of TV funding, with viewers being given preferences and a chance to voice an opinion through that choice. By outlining future potential developments on the BSkyB market, including the introduction of a family channel, a sci-fi channel and a music channel, Elstein predicts that competition will become even more of an issue by the end of this decade when it will be possible to receive hundreds of channels – then he believes we will see the true popularity of satellite television.
Commenting on the recent dispute raging about BSkyB dish sales figures being distorted, Elstein says that he sees it as flattery that competitors should feel the need to ‘muddy the waters’ claiming that it is a ‘phantom debate, fuelled by those with most to fear from satellite’. “Whether 60,000 or 100,000 dishes are installed each month is really only the difference between whether BSkyB becomes very profitable sooner or later” he says.
If satellite maintains the 30% share of viewing within satellite homes that it currently holds Elstein believes that it will eventually triple when satellite is available in 50% of homes, something he predicts will happen sooner rather than later. To exemplify the type of viewing within satellite homes he quotes figures from various nights’ viewing, including Monday 22nd when BBC1 averaged a TVR of 7.9 in all homes, with ‘other’ than the four terrestrials averaging 1.7. Within satellite homes, however, BBC1’s average dropped to 5.4 with ‘other’ reaching 9.0 (Sky accounted for 6.9 of this figure).
He goes on to say that GMTV’s current difficulties are worse in satellite homes, eg. Last Wednesday between 7.45 and 8.45 GMTV averaged a 2.9 TVR in all homes, BBC 2.4, Channel 4 1.9, and ‘other’ 0.9. In satellite homes GMTV averaged 2.3, BBC 1.7, Channel 4 1.6 and ‘other’ 4.5. As satellite expands he says “there is only one direction in which GMTV’s audience share can go”.
When asked if he believed cable would eventually become a main deliverer of BSkyB Elstein replied that he still sees satellite as an attractive proposition and does not think that will change in the near future. Out of a total of 4.9m subscribers to the service only 10-20% of those are cable subscribers, a figure which will remain stable depending on the ‘ambition of cable operators’.
