Feature: IPA Trends Suggest ITV Is Losing Out To Other Commercial Channels

The latest quarterly Trends In Television report from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) shows a continuing trend of terrestrial, free to air channels’ share falling whilst viewing to non-terrestrial and cable and satellite-only channels continues to rise. The third quarter survey reports that overall viewing levels have actually risen slightly with average daily hours up from 3.35 in Q3 1999 to 3.43 this time. Nevertheless there has not been much good news for ITV, which is still failing to a command a viewing share above 30%. Across the period the Network gained a share of 27.8%, just 0.7% points above BBC1. Each of the other terrestrial channels saw share decline year on year with the exception of Channel 4, which enjoyed a 0.5% points rise in share to 11.0%.

Non-terrestrial stations, meanwhile, took their share above seventeen percent for the first time, rising from 16.3% to 17.5%. As the graph shows clearly, the two mass-audience channels – BBC1 and ITV – have been subject to a steady decline in share since multi-channel television came along and look set to be hit even harder by the multitude of viewing choices that will be offered up by digital services. Cable and satellite channels – shown as Other Commercial in the chart – are gradually chipping away at BBC1 and ITV’s viewing and, given current trends, are on a direct course to overtake them.

“It is clear that the long term growth in the percentage of viewing taken by commercial channels is driven almost entirely by non-terrestrial channels,” says the IPA’s report. A very crude analysis of the linear trends on the chart shown here would predict Other Commercial’s share of viewing to overtake ITV’s in around five or six years’ time (although in practice the trends are unlikely to be this simplistic.)

Interestingly, the ‘minority’ terrestrial channels BBC2 and Channel 4 have been impervious to the rise in viewing to cab-sat stations, with each of their shares hovering between ten and eleven percent for more than five years. This perhaps suggests that the majority of stations available through multi-channel packages are targeting the same mass audience as BBC1 and ITV. This may be of interest to those concerned about the breadth and scope of minority and educational programming in the digital age. Such programming tends to be higher on BBC2 and Channel 4 than BBC1 and ITV, which are predominantly entertainment channels.