TV Market Round-Up – December 2006

December was a poor month for all terrestrial broadcasters, as each saw their revenues fall year on year, with overall terrestrial revenues falling by 8.3%.

Making up the bulk of this deficit was ITV1, which saw its revenues fall by £11.6 million year on year, or 9.5%. Over the course of 2006, the broadcaster saw its revenues fall by £176 million versus 2005.

Channel 4 also saw its revenues fall during December, as year on year they were down by 9%. Five and GMTV fared better, with marginal drops over the Christmas month of 0.8% and 1.4% respectively.

Meanwhile, satellite channels’ revenues increased by nearly 8% year on year. During the month, Ofcom released their latest Communications Market: Digital Television Progress Report, which announced that 73.3% were now watching digital television on their main TV set and that there were almost eight million second sets connected to some form of digital reception device, up from four million in the same period in 2005 (see Digital TV Shows Strong Growth).

ITV Franchises

Central, at 16.4%, remains the ITV franchise area providing the majority of ITV1’s revenue, following on from last month.

LWT saw the largest dip in share for the second month in a row, of 0.8% points year on year, whilst Scotland saw the greatest increase, of 0.6% points year on year.

West Country once again provided the smallest share of revenue share, at 1.9%.

ITV1 saw all of its CPTs for our featured audiences increase year on year during December, rising by between 5.7% for Women to 8.2% for Housewives with Children.

Channel 4, however, saw a large decrease in CPTs for three of the featured audiences, with Women falling by 12.1%, Housewives by 11.6% and Housewives with Children by 11.0%.

Five saw price increases for all audiences, the largest coming from Housewives with Children at 12.5%. Even with these CPT increases, the channel remains the UK’s cheapest terrestrial channel.

ITV1 saw all of its impacts for our featured audiences fall by over 14% year on year during the month. ITV1 was hard hit over the Christmas period following a strong performance by BBC One, as Strictly Come Dancing, killer EastEnder‘s storylines and Vicar of Dibley special editions trounced the commercial broadcaster in the ratings (see Festive Season Brings Cheer To BBC One).

Similarly, Five also saw impacts fall across the featured audiences, with Housewives with Children and Women experiencing the largest drops, down 11.8% and 10.1% respectively.

Channel 4 had a mixed month, with impacts falling for Adults, Men and ABC1 Adults, while the remaining featured audiences all saw increases of around 2.5%-3.5% year on year.

Satellite channels had a very successful December, with impacts increasing across all our featured audiences during the competitive month. Following the trend of last month, Housewives with Children had the lowest increase of just 3.7%, compared with a minimum of 16.1% for the other audiences.

Overall, total broadcast impacts were slightly down for most of the audiences, with Women and Housewives both falling by 0.8% year on year. However, Housewives with Children saw the largest drop in impacts of 4.7% in December.

BARB: www.barb.co.uk