TV Market Round-Up – August 2007

August was a difficult month for most of the terrestrial broadcasters, with only GMTV posting a year on year increase in revenue.

The breakfast franchise recorded a 2.8% rise compared to August 2006, to stand at £3.69 million. This should prove to be a fillip for the beleaguered station, which is still battling back from the industry-wide controversy surrounding phone-in voting irregularities (see GMTV Could Face Record Fine Over Phone-In Scandal).

ITV1 as a whole saw its revenue dip by 5.5%, with a monthly total of £87.78 million. Channel 4 slipped by £10,000 to stand at £47.32 million, which translated to a negligible year on year decrease .

Satellite revenues were strong, with figures showing a 7.7% year on year increase.

ITV Franchises

Despite a 0.9 percentage point fall year on year, Central remained the largest share of ITV1 revenue. For the month of August, the Midlands franchise area had a 16.28% share of the network’s revenue.

Meridian had the best year on year increase, rising by 0.57 percentage points

Once again West Country attained the smallest share of the network’s revenue, with 2.15% for August.

ITV1 posted falls across all but one of our featured CPT audiences, with only Housewives with Children costing more than last year. The price for Housewives with Children stood at £53.82 per thousand, up 7.4% compared to August 2006.

For Channel 4, all our featured audiences were more expensive than last year. Like last month, ABC1 Adults recorded the biggest increase of nearly 18%.

Five continues to offer the cheapest price for terrestrial channels across these audiences, despite their respective prices costing more than in 2006. Housewives with Children attained the greatest price increase, up 16.5% year on year for the month.

ITV1’s recent recovery continues apace with only Housewives with Children impacts falling year on year. The best performing audience amongst our featured list was Housewives, increasing 9.6% on August 2006.

Channel 4 had a bad month, perhaps in part to a lacklustre conclusion to Big Brother, usually a ratings banker for the channel. The greatest fall of commercial impacts could be seen by ABC1 Adults, which dipped considerably by 15%.

Five saw falls across featured audiences, with Housewives dropping the least amount, by 9.2% year on year.

All but two of Total Broadcast’s featured audiences were up year on year, the best performance coming from Housewives with 3% growth.

BARB: www.barb.co.uk