Digital Television Round-Up – April 2001

April’s digital TV viewing figures showed that the non-terrestrial channels increased their average weekly share of viewing year on year. BBC1 also managed an increase. The largest loss in viewing share was at BBC2 which dropped from an average 12% weekly share of viewing in all homes to 10.6%

BBC2 was the only non-terrestrial channel not to improve its viewing share in digital homes year on year, while BBC1 grew from 17.2% to 19.1%. The non-terrestrial channels’ dominance in these households continues to slip as a result, falling further below the 50% mark.

In ONdigital versus Sky Digital homes, the gap between the viewing shares of non-terrestrial channels is narrowing. Whereas before these channels gained a larger share of viewing in Sky homes, this month the difference was 48% compared to 36.2% in ONdigital homes, a smaller gap than is usually expected. Among the terrestrial channels, while all gain a larger share of viewing in ONdigital homes, for ITV the difference between the two platforms is greater, as it gains a 23.4% share in ONdigital homes, where it has a carriage deal, compared to 18.7% in Sky Digital homes, where it does not.

Subscribers can access more digital viewing figures in the Television database by selecting “Television” from the drop-down box at the top of this page.