Television Viewing Round-Up – April 2005
Viewing share across the UK’s terrestrial broadcasters continued to slip during April, with the continuing strength of multi-channel offerings robbing traditional channels of their audiences.
ITV1 was hit worst by the downturn, losing 1.3% points from its viewing share year on year during the month. April saw ITV drop the highly criticised, Celebrity Wrestling, after failing to achieve the traditionally large audiences of ITV celebrity head-to-heads (see BBC Pins ITV In Saturday Wrestling Showdown).
The broadcaster trails behind rival BBC1, with the gap between the two stations audiences shares narrowing to just 2% points. Despite dropping by 0.68% points year on year, BBC1 still remains the market leader amongst terrestrial stations, commanding an audience share of over 23% points.
Channel 4 was the only terrestrial broadcaster to enjoy a rise in viewing share, going up by 0.1% points and taking its audience share up to just over 9.7% points in April.
Channel 4 announced plans to commission several new comedy shows to boost its share in April, extending its programme portfolio and building on its stated intention to air more original British comedy, made at the launch of its spring schedule (seeChannel 4 Expands Schedule With New Comedy).
Elsewhere, BBC2 dipped slightly during April, losing 0.7% points year on year, while Five also lost viewing share, going down by 0.7 % points.
Digital homes performed stronger in terms of increasing viewing share during April, with Channel 4 leading the way rising by almost 0.8% points, attracting an audience share of 7.7% points.
BBC1 remained the predominant force in digital homes, gaining 0.8% points year on year, to reach an audience share of 19.4% points. Sister station, BBC2 also increased its viewing share in digital homes, enjoying a rise of 0.2% points like for like, bringing its total viewing share for April up to 7.3% points.
ITV1 achieved the second highest audience share in April, going up by 0.1% points year on year to reach an overall share of 18.3% points in all digital households. Meanwhile, Five rose by 0.5% points in the same period.
Terrestrial channels, attracted higher audience shares, on the Freeview platform, compared to Sky during April, with the BBC remaining the most watched channel on the medium, with a total share of 25.5% points.
Once again, ITV1, was hot on the BBC’s tail, being watched on Freeview boxes by just over 23% of households and regaining ground over Other channels, after being topped by the sector during March.
Channel 4 attracted a 10.5% viewing share in Freeview households, compared to a share of just over 5% in Sky Digital households.
The broadcaster has recently been expanding its digital offering, last month snapping up a newly available slot on Freeview, beating bids from Five, Disney, Turner Broadcasting, Top-Up-TV and Sit-Up-TV with a bid believed to be around £5 million (see Channel 4 Snaps Up Spare Freeview Slot).
On the Sky platform, ITV has overtaken the BBC in viewing share, commanding over 18%, compared to just over 16% for BBC1. Other channels are clearly in their element on Sky, enjoying a continued increase in share, achieving over 51% points, due to the volume of choice.
BARB: www.barb.co.uk