Television Viewing Round-Up – December 2005
BBC1 and ITV1 both lost nearly 1% point from their viewing share during December, whilst multichannel viewing increased at a similar rate year on year.
In digital homes, however, all terrestrial broadcasters displayed increases in viewing share, as strong Christmas programming dominated the December schedules.
All Viewing
December saw the two main terrestrial broadcasters lose viewing share to multichannel offerings, with both BBC1 and ITV1 losing 0.9% points year on year. Christmas Day rating peaks were provided by the soaps on both channels, but BBC1 stole the viewing crown with a combination of EastEnders and Dr Who (see BBC Wins Christmas Day Ratings Battle).
Five saw its share remain at 6.1% over December, whilst BBC2 grew its share slighty by 0.2% points. At the same time C4’s share dropped 0.3% points to 8.6%.
Multichannel viewing increased year on year, but to a lesser extent than seen in recent months, with a 1.9% point rise, bringing its share to 30.6%.
Digital Viewing
Modest increases in viewing share were displayed by all the terrestrial broadcasters during December, with BBC2 making the greatest gains, adding 0.8% points to its share year on year.
ITV1 remained the terrestrial channel of choice in digital homes, with 19.4% viewing share, slightly ahead of BBC1 at 19.36%, with ITV1 adding 0.5% points onto last year’s figure of 18.9%.
Multichannel viewing remains dominant in digital homes, but with a loss of 1.6% points share during December. However it continues to have a larger share than BBC1 and ITV1 viewers combined, at 42.4%.
Freeview Vs Sky
BBC1 continued to be the main terrestrial channel of choice in Freeview homes, with the channel having 7.9% points more share in Freeview than Sky homes. December saw Sky confirm subsriber numbers had passed eight million in the UK, surpassing its targets (see Sky Subscribers Pass Eight Million).
Multichannel remained the most popular viewing choice in both types of digital homes, with multichannel having a 50.5% share in Sky homes, and 26.2% share in Freeview homes. As such, multichannel options take up 24.3% points more share in Sky homes than in Freeview homes, due to the greater choice of channels available.
BARB: www.barb.co.uk