TV Market Round-Up – December 2005

ITV saw its revenues fall for the second month running in December, with a 4.6% drop year on year, leaving the channel with revenue of £122.6 million for the month. The broadcaster announced that the ITV News Channel will close in January, allowing airspace on the Freeview platform for a new ITV channel, such as the broadcaster’s forthcoming children’s channel (see ITV To Axe News Channel By End Of January).

Channel 4 and Five both saw steady months, showing slight increases year on year in the key Christmas period, with increases of 0.3% and 0.9% respectively year on year. Five secured a high profile sponsor for its Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, as Rolls Royce signed up for its first ever TV sponsorship campaign (see Five Sheds Lowbrow Image With Rolls Royce Deal).

Strong revenue rises were seen across satellite channels, with a 16.9% increase on last December, leaving their combined revenue at £58.1 million.

GMTV continued to see its revenue fall year on year, with a further drop this month of 4.5%, leaving the channel with £4.2 million to close the year.

ITV Franchises

LWT received the largest increase in revenue across the ITV franchise areas in December, adding 1% point onto last year’s share, contributing 13.4% of ITV’s revenue.

Carlton and Anglia both saw their revenues drop by 0.4% year on year over the festive month, with Meridian facing the biggest loss of the month, with a 0.5% dip.

Central continued to provide the largest share of ITV’s revenue at 16.1%, up 0.3% year on year, with West Country remaining the smallest contributor at just 1.9%, down 0.2% year on year.

Costs Per Thousand

C4 saw its costs per thousand increase across the board in our featured audiences in December. Housewives with Children and ABC1 Adults saw the greatest increases, at 6.5% and 6.3% change year on year respectively.

By comparison, Five saw all their CPTs drop, with the largest falls being for Women and ABC1 Adults, keeping it the cheapest channel on terrestrial TV.

ITV1 CPTs remained relatively stable, with a slight drop of 0.1% for Women. The channel remains less expensive than C4 on all the key audiences other than ABC1 Adults, where at £16.44 it was the most expensive way to target ABC1 Adults on terrestrial TV.

Commercial Impacts

ITV1 and C4 both saw their audiences fall across all the featured audiences during December. Even with strong programming, ITV was continually beaten in the ratings war with BBC1 in the key Saturday night arena throughout December (see BBC’s Strictly Wipes The Dance Floor With X Factor).

Five had a clean sweep of impact increases during December across all our featured audiences. The greatest increase come from ABC1 Adults with a 9.3% increase year on year.

Satellite impacts were all up, however at a lower rate than in previous months. Housewives with Children demonstrated the greatest increase at 15.8% and men the lowest at a modest (by satellite standards) 6.6% year on year.

BARB: www.barb.co.uk