Commercial broadcaster, Channel 4, has announced its strongest January performance for five years, revealing a 10.3% audience share for the first month of 2005, beating rival BBC2.
Channel 4 performed strongly in 2004, seeing audience share increase by 2%, year on year and January 2005 marks an 11% increase on January 2004. The last time the channel reported such robust growth was in 2000.
These results compare with a fall in audience share, year on year, for the other major terrestrial channels, with BB2 down 14% to 9.5% in the same period, BBC1 dropping 9% to 23% and ITV losing 10% to 22.1%. Five, however, managed to increase their audience share by 3% to 6.4%, though from a much smaller base.
Channel 4 grew in the commercially important 16-34 and ABC1 audiences by 28% and 6% respectively, the channels 8.4% share in multi-channel homes also reflected an increase of 24% on 2004.
The channel’s impressive performance is attributed to strong programmes in all genres and a peak time schedule that viewers found easy to navigate, with weekday slots for lifestyle programmes at 8pm, major factual programmes at 9pm and drama at 10pm.
Rating hits for January included entertainment shows like Celebrity Big Brother, pulling in 5.4 million viewers, The Simpsons with an audience of 3.2 million and newly acquired Desperate Housewives with 5.4 million.
TV advertising expenditure is predicted to grow at its fastest rate since 2000, with new data released by media group ZenithOptimedia, forecasting TV adspend to increase by 12% in Q1 2005 (see TV Adspend Fuelled By Elections). This confirms estimates released last week by Starcom, also predicting a 12% increase in adspend for the same period (see TV Ad Revenue At 5 Year High).
Media buying agencies claim that the proposed general election in May and the strengthening of the UK economy has increased TV advertising demand.
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