Terrestrial Viewing Share To Fall As Digital Booms

Media analyst DGA has predicted that the combined share of BBC One, BBC Two, ITV1, Channel 4 and Five will fall by 13% by 2012 because of the increasing penetration of digital TV, according to research commissioned by Broadcast.

Currently the terrestrial channels have a collective share of more than 67%. This is likely to fall to 58.7%, with multi-channel brands accounting for 41.3% of all TV viewing. BBC Two will have the biggest drop of the terrestrial channels, with a 17.9% fall taking its likely total share to 7.3% by 2012, compared with 8.9% this year.

The research showed that Channel 4’s share in 2012 is predicted to be down by 14.5% on 2006 with a share of 8.2%.

The two main terrestrial channels, BBC One and ITV1, are likely to suffer a similar decline. BBC One is expected to fall 11.3% from 22.9% in 2006 to 20.3% in 2012. ITV1’s audience share is forecast to drop 11.4% from 20.1% in 2006 to 17.8% in 2012.

Five’s audience is predicted to fall by 12.1% from 5.8% now to 5.1% in 2012.

According to DGA’s figures, much of the decline of the main terrestrial channels will be offset by the growth of channels such as ITV2, BBC Three and E4.

The BBC’s combined family of channels will have a total share of national viewing of 31.5% in 2012, down from 34.7%. ITV’s family is likely to be 22.5% in 2012, down from 23.5% in 2006.

Channel 4 is expected to benefit from this trend with channels such as Film 4 and E4 helping to increase the broadcaster’s overall share. In 2012 C4’s family of channels is projected to have a share of 11.9%, a slight increase on this year’s share of 11.8%. Film 4, E4 and More 4 are projected to collectively account for 3.7% of the entire broadcaster’s share, up from 2.2% this year.

Five’s network of channels is also expected to increase its share overall. This year it managed a share of 5.9% as it launched both Five US and Five Life and this is likely to grow to 6.1% in 2012.

Freeview’s share of viewing is expected to hit 23.7% in 2012, up from 13.5%, a rise of 43%. Over the same period, cable and satellite viewing is likely to rise by 9% to 32.1% in 2012.

Broadcast: www.broadcastnow.co.uk