Television Viewing Round-Up – December 2008
Four out of the five main terrestrial channels saw declines in viewing share in December – Five was the only channel to buck the downward trend, recording a 0.1 percentage points increase year on year.
All Viewing
BBC One and ITV1 both experienced a year on year decline of 0.5%, taking their shares down to 21.9% and 17.9% respectively, despite the weekend rating winning shows, Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor.
BBC One’s Strictly and ITV1’s X Factor battled it out for months to win over viewers – The X Factor just managed to gain higher ratings for the main show with over 10 million viewers on average, while Strictly attracted nearly 9.5 million (see X Factor v Strictly).
Around 14 million viewers tuned in to see the X Factor finale in mid-December alone, pulling in a massive 53.14% audience share for ITV1 (see 14 Million Watch X Factor Finale).
Meanwhile, Channel 4 and BBC Two both saw relatively large year on year declines of 0.7 percentage points last month – Channel 4’s share has fallen down to just 7.1%, while BBC Two’s share now stands at 8.1%.
In December, Lord Carter confirmed he would make four proposals to solve Channel 4’s funding crisis when the interim report of his Digital Britain panel is published (see Channel 4 could face privatisation).
Carter’s report is expected to consider four options for the future of Channel 4, which are thought to be privatisation, a merger with Channel Five, a joint venture with BBC Worldwide, or further public subsidy to keep it afloat.
Overall, the main terrestrial channels struggled during December, despite the Christmas period. However, Five managed to record a 0.1 percentage points year on year increase, taking its share to 4.7%.
Other channels were up by 2 percentage points year on year, to 39.5%.
Digital Viewing
Digital viewing saw a similar pattern to all viewing, with the main channels reporting declines in viewing share in December apart from Five.
Channel 4 and BBC Two were both down by 0.5 percentage points in digital homes, leaving their share at 6.4% and 7.2% respectively.
ITV1 was also down by 0.3 percentage points, taking its share to 16.9%.
Meanwhile, BBC One dipped by 0.2 percentage points – its share now stands at 20.6%.
However, Five recorded a slight increase of 0.3 percentage points year on year in digital homes, up to 4.6%.
Other channels were up by 1.0 percentage point year on year.
Data to form this report can be found in the Television database on mediatel.co.uk within the “Weekly – Analysis by Platform” section. For any assistance please contact the helpdesk on 020 7439 7575.
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