Television Viewing Round-Up – March 2006

March saw a continuation of February’s trend, with BBC One, ITV1 and Five all losing viewing share year on year in both all viewing homes and in digital homes.

Meanwhile, Channel 4 saw a slight increase in share in all homes, whilst multichannel viewing share continued to grow.

BBC One and ITV1 both saw their viewing share drop during March, by 1.9 and 1.4 percentage points respectively. With ITV1 facing another month of reduced viewing share, the broadcaster announced the launch of ITV Play, which would broaden the broadcaster’s revenue streams (see ITV Play To Broaden Broadcaster’s Revenue Streams).

The BBC meanwhile, launched its largest marketing drive since the “Perfect Day” campaign, to highlight its real-life value with the tagline “This is what we do” (see BBC Launches Marketing Drive To Convey Value).

BBC Two and Five both saw slight viewing share reductions during March at 0.5 and 0.3 percentage points respectively.

Channel 4 was the only terrestrial broadcaster to display share growth, albeit at only 0.3 percentage points year on year, taking its overall share to 9.4%.

Multichannel viewing continued to rise, with a 3.7 percentage point increase year on year.

ITV1 saw its year on year viewing share in digital homes drop by 0.8 percentage points, down to 18.3%. During March, ITV rejected two takeover bids from Greg Dyke’s investment consortium, who have stated they will not approach for a third time (see ITV Rejects Second Bid By Defeated Dyke Consortium).

BBC One continued to be the terrestrial channel of choice in digital homes, with a 20% viewing share, following a slight year on year drop of 0.5 percentage points.

Channel 4 and BBC Two both saw their viewing shares increase year on year by 0.4 and 0.6 percentage points respectively.

Multichannel viewing share also increased in digital homes, up 0.5 percentage points to 41.4% share. Reports stated that Sky is planning to embrace IPTV and video on-demand in 2007, following its acquisition of internet service provider Easynet (see Sky To Launch IPTV Service In 2007).

BBC One continued to demand the highest viewing share amongst the terrestrial channels in both Sky and Freeview homes, with a share of 17.7% in Sky homes and 24.8% in Freeview homes.

Multichannel continues to be the most popular channel option, with viewing share of these digital channels at 50.2% in Sky homes and 26.4% in Freeview homes, with the difference due to the smaller channel choice available on Freeview.

BARB: www.barb.co.uk