Television Viewing Round-Up – October 2005

October saw a poor month for commercial broadcasters, with their share of viewing slipping on last year’s levels. ITV1 had the largest downturn of 1.6% points.

At the same time, BBC1 increased its share in both all homes and digital homes, putting pressure on the commercial broadcasters in the run up to Christmas.

All Viewing

Out of the terrestrial broadcasters, only BBC1 showed an increase in share of viewing during October. ITV had a drop of 1.6% points from last October, bringing their viewing share down to 21.8%.

BBC1 improved on last year’s share by 0.1% points, bringing their share in all TV homes to 23.7%. In a change to usual scheduling, BBC1 began the serialisation of Dickens’ classic Bleak House in October in two evening slots each week, to much critical acclaim (see BBC’s Dickens Drama Makes A Bleak Night For ITV).

Channel 4 and five both saw small dips of -0.2% points in their viewing share, bringing their shares to 8.7% and 6.4% respectively.

Multichannel viewing increased year on year by 2.9% points, making their share of viewing over 30% for the third month in a row.

Digital Viewing

BBC1 had a successful month in digital homes, adding 1.3% points to its viewing share, bringing its total to 19.8%.

Last year Channel 4 and BBC2 had identical share of viewing in digital homes, but a drop for BBC2 and a rise for Channel 4 sees Channel 4 now commanding 0.5% more share than BBC2.

ITV1 saw a drop in viewing from last year of 0.5% points, leaving it with just under 19% share of viewing in digital homes.

Multichannel options continue to dominate viewing in digital homes with other channels commanding a 43% share of viewing, despite a dip of 1% on last year’s figures. October saw a new digital channel launch for Channel 4 with More4 appearing on the digital landscape across satellite, cable and Freeview on 10th October (see NewsLine).

Freeview Vs Sky

BBC1 continued to be the main terrestrial channel of choice in Freeview homes, with a 25.7% share of viewing, but ITV1 took this crown in Sky homes with a 17.6% share of viewing in comparison to BBC1’s 17.1% share.

Multichannel remained the most popular choice in both Freeview and Sky homes, due to the larger choice of channels available.

Viewing share of these digital channels is 51.8% in Sky homes and 25.8% in Freeview homes, with this difference due to the smaller amount of channels available through a Freeview box.

BARB: www.barb.co.uk