Digital Television Round-Up – May 2004
ITV1 saw its average share of weekly viewing in all homes dip by more than 2% points year on year during May to just under the 26% mark, amid fierce competition from commercial rivals Channel 4 and Five.
The start of high-profile reality-TV shows Hell’s Kitchen at the end of May did little to boost ITV, which was hard hit by the popularity of the last series of Friends on Channel 4 and UEFA Cup coverage on Five.
However, the broadcaster is expecting to experience record ratings in June thanks to its coverage of the Euro 2004 football championships. The tournament got off to a flying start last weekend with more than 20 million sports fans tuning in to ITV1 to watch France clinch a sensational comeback victory over England (see 20.7 Million Watch England Lose Out To France).
Analysis of viewing figures from BARB show that Channel 4 hit a ratings high last month with millions of people tuning in to watch the final episode of Friends and the long-awaited launch of this year’s Big Brother. So-called Black Friday helped the channel to see its average weekly share of viewing rise by 0.8% points to just over the crucial 10% mark.
Five saw its share of weekly viewing in all homes inch-up by 0.7% year on year to just over 7% thanks to its UEFA Cup coverage and its high-profile Bruce Willis season of action films. Other broadcasters made a solid 2.8% points increase during the same period.
ITV also performed poorly in digital homes with its average weekly share of viewing dipping by 1.9% points year on year to just over the 18% mark. Former BBC chairman and economist, Gavyn Davies, warned last week that ITV could be facing severe financial problems due to the increasing popularity of multi-channel television (see ITV Business Model Under Threat From Multi-Channel TV).
Channel 4 continued to gain ground with its share of digital viewing rising by 1.1% during May to 6.7% ahead of the proposed launch of a raft of new digital channels. Five also inched up by 0.8% points during the same period to just under 5.4%.
BBC One saw its average weekly share of viewing in digital homes rise by 0.3% during May following the launch of the Corporation’s biggest on-screen marketing campaign to date. However, BBC Two proved less fortunate with a slight 0.4% dip during the same period to 6.6% (see BBC Pushes Digital With Biggest Ever Marketing Campaign).
ITV1 continued to perform better in Freeview homes than in Sky Digital homes due to the lack of rivalry from the likes of Sky One and E4. The UK’s largest commercial broadcaster commands a 22.4% average weekly share of viewing on the digital terrestrial platform, compared to just under 17% on digital satellite.
The wider variety available via Sky Digital helped other channels to command a massive 50.8% average weekly share of viewing in satellite homes, compared to just over 18% in Freeview homes. However, last week BSkyB announced plans to launch a free-to-air satellite package of more than 200 television and radio channels to compete with the BBC-backed Freeview service (see BSkyB To Launch Free-To-Air Satellite Package).
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