Television Viewing Round-Up – February 2006

February saw a similar pattern played out in both digital homes and all TV homes, with BBC One, ITV1 and Five all losing viewing share year on year.

Conversely, BBC Two and Channel 4 both saw slight increases, whilst satellite viewing continued to grow.

ITV1’s concerns continued in February as viewing share fell by 2.1% points year on year. The broadcaster is now very close to dropping below 20% share in all TV viewing homes.

BBC One also saw its viewing share fall to 22.3% share, a drop of 1.4% points.

Five suffered a small drop of just 0.6% points, while BBC Two and Channel 4 both saw their share rise very slightly, at 0.3% points and 0.2% points respectively.

Multichannel viewing continued to rise year on year, with a 2.7% point increase, giving a share of 31.3%.

In a similar trend to all TV viewing, ITV1 suffered the largest decrease in viewing share out of the terrestrial channels in digital homes, with a drop of 1.4% points year on year.

BBC One’s share remained relatively stable, with a very slight decrease leaving the channel with a 19.5% viewing share during February.

BBC Two saw its share increase by nearly 1% point, whilst Channel 4 also grew its share by 0.6%, with the broadcasters receiving 7.6% and 8.2% share respectively.

In a reversal to the trend of the last few months, multichannel saw its share increase in digital homes, up 0.7% points to 42.4% share.

BBC One remained the terrestrial channel of choice in both Freeview and Sky homes in February, with the channel having 7.4% points more share in Freeview than Sky homes.

Due to the larger channel choice available, multichannel options remained the most popular choice in both Freeview and Sky homes, with over half of the viewing share in Sky homes dominated by satellite channels.

BARB: www.barb.co.uk