TV Annual Round-Up – 1998
Revenue
When pitched against a UK display advertising growth of 7.4% between January and September 1998 (according to Advertising Association (AA) figures*), ITV’s 4.8% growth in revenue to £1.76 billion does not look too healthy. The same AA Quarterly Survey shows that revenue for the TV industry was up by 7.4% in this nine month period. Nevertheless, this is a much stronger revenue growth than the Network managed between 1996 and 1997, up by only 1.6% between those two years. ITV’s strongest months, when compared to the same time in 1997, were April and August. February, March and June were the Network’s weakest months.
*Annual figures not yet available.
The ITV franchise companies saw very little change in their share of revenues during 1998. Carlton lost the greatest relative share, down by 0.28% points; Yorkshire gained the largest revenue share, up 0.29% points. The other franchises remained fairly level year on year. Carlton received the largest slice of the revenue ‘pie’ with 16.4%, followed by Central (16.0%) and LWT (11.5%).
The revenue figures for Channel 4 and Channel 5 are shown below. Channel 4 enjoyed a greater increase in revenue last year, bringing in a total of £548 million – an increase of 6.9%.
Channel 5 continues to grow the strength and size of its business with revenue increase of 65.8% across the whole of 1998, reaching £139 million. However, as Channel 5 only broadcast from April 1997, it is perhaps more accurate to compare April-December 1997 with the equivalent period in 1998. In this case revenue was up by 30.2% (£25 million) to £109 million. C5’s strongest months were in the Autumn during September, October and November.
Costs Per Thousand
Costs continue to rise for all audience categories across both ITV and Channel 4. ABC1 Adults on ITV cost an average of 1,913p in 1998, up 4.8% year on year. The cost to reach Women rose by the greatest proportion, up 9.2% to 1,174p on ITV and 6.5% to 1,230p on Channel 4. On C4 ABC1 Adults cost 1,698p per thousand, up by 2.6% year on year.
In its first full calender year, Channel 5 has managed to drive its audiences up sufficiently for costs to drop across all audience categories. It should be noted that the comparisons given here, however, are averages from all of 1998 against averages from April-December 1997. ABC1 Adults on C5 cost 1,317p, a decrease of 11.6%. Adults CPTs averaged 433p, down by 16.1%
Impacts
Whilst ITV’s Adults impacts fell by 1.3% to 25,403 in 1998, the Network achieved greater effectiveness in reaching Men. Impacts for Men rose to 10,192, up by 3.4%. Housewives/Children impacts were also up, by 2.0% to 4,205. This is an achievement for ITV and bucks the trend of the last couple of years which have seen a decrease in impacts across all audience categories.
Channel 4 enjoyed increased in impacts for all audience categories last year. Impacts for Men were up by 4.5% to 3,482; the all-important ABC1s were also up by 4.2% to 3,278.
Average impacts on Channel 5 were up across the board in 1998. ABC1 Adults impacts averaged 1,077 and Adults averaged 3,261 across the year. Note that the comparisons here are taken between the whole of 1998 and April-December 1997. For a more flexible analysis reports can be run in the Television database.
Viewing Share
With the exception of ABC1 Adults on Channel 4 and Children on BBC2, all the terrestrial broadcasters bar Channel 5 lost viewing share in all audience categories between 1997 and 1998. Cable and satellite channels and C5 however are stealing away audiences from the established terrestrial broadcasters.
Perhaps the most outstanding trend shown here is the growth in BBC2’s share of viewing for Children, up 0.8% points to 12.9% year on year. Channel 5 has grown its share of viewing across all audience categories as have cable and satellite channels. Housewives/Children are turning to multi-channel television according to these figures: this category’s share for cable/satellite is up by 1.7% points to 15.5% – greater than both Channel 4 and Channel 5. In fact, cable and satellite channels also command a greater share than C4 and C5 across Individuals, Adults, Men and Children.
ITV held on to the 31.7% majority of viewing across all Individuals although it slipped by 1.2% points on 1997. BBC1, however, lost 1.3% points share, falling back to 29.4% for Individuals. In fact, BBC1 lost the greatest share overall share in 1998, down by an average of 1.5% points across all audience categories. Channel 4 gained share slightly for ABC1 Adults and held steady for Women and Housewives. Channel 5’s viewing shares are up across the board, coming with an overall 4.3% share for individuals (up 1.4% points year on year).
Please note: All year on year comparisons for Channel 5 have been calculated using data from all of 1998 and data from April to December 1997 unless stated otherwise. For a more flexible analysis reports can be run in the Television database.
A summary of last year’s news events is availble by clicking (see A Look Back At 1998…).
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