Television Advertising Revenue To Rise By 3% This Year

ITV’s commercial airtime revenues will barely grow during 2004, as its share of television advertising dips from 51% to 50%, according to new a forward-looking report from Billetts Media Consulting.

Billetts says that ITV’s revenues will rise by a meagre 0.3% in 2004, whilst multi-channel advertising jumps by 11.0% year on year. As a result, multichannel’s share of the market will rise from 19.0% in 2003 to 20.3% this year. This is more than double the share of advertising that the multi-channel sector took in 1997.

Strong revenue growth will also come from Five, which is predicted to rise by 6.0% this year. Channel 4 is weaker at just 2.0% growth and its share of the market is expected to fall behind multi-channel’s by the second half of the year.

Overall, the total television airtime market is forecast to rise by 3.0% in 2004, an improvement on 2003’s 0.5% rise. This concurs with October 2003 forecasts from Mediaedge:cia, which also predict a 3.0% rise in the television market this year.

Billetts expects growth to come from the Olympics and Euro 2004 competitions (the Euro 2000 competition pushed revenues up by 16% in June of that year). The report also says that two or three major car launches should improve motor spend.

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