Television Viewing Round-Up – December 2006

ITV1 lost nearly 4% points from its viewing share during December, whilst multichannel viewing increased at a similar rate year on year.

In digital homes, however, all terrestrial broadcasters except ITV1 displayed increases in viewing share, as strong Christmas programming dominated the December schedules.

Across December, ITV1 saw its share fall to 18.4%, compared to 22.3% during the previous December, even considering the month featured the final episode of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and the concluding weeks of X-Factor.

However, over the Christmas period, BBC One comfortably claimed victory, with stoic performances by the Vicar of Dibley, Dr Who, Pauline Fowler’s final demise in EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing‘s final episode and Christmas special dominating the ratings (see Festive Season Brings Cheer To BBC One).

Over December as a whole, BBC One saw its share increase very slightly, by 0.3% points, as did Channel 4. Meanwhile, both BBC Two and Five both saw a slight fall in share.

Similarly in digital television homes, ITV1 saw its share of viewing fall by 2.8% points year on year during December, whilst all other stations either remained static or showed slight increases.

BBC One showed the greatest increase in share, up by 1.2% points year on year, while Channel 4 increased by 0.6% points.

Multichannel viewing increased by 0.7% year on year, even considering the increased terrestrial viewing over the Christmas period.

BBC1 continued to be the main terrestrial channel of choice in Freeview homes, with the channel having 7.0% points more share in Freeview than Sky homes.

Multichannel remained the most popular viewing choice in both types of digital homes, with multichannel having a 51.9% share in Sky homes, and 30.6% share in Freeview homes. As such, multichannel options take up 21.3% points more share in Sky homes than in Freeview homes, due to the greater choice of channels available.

Data to form this report can be found in the Television database on mediatel.co.uk within the “Weekly – Analysis by Platform” section. For any assistance please contact the helpdesk on 020 7439 7575.

BARB: www.barb.co.uk