TV Market Round-Up – December 1999

Revenue Total terrestrial television revenue for December 1999 (including GMTV) came in at £185.8 million, according to agency estimates. Of this, the ITV Network’s slice was 6.6% lower than the same month last year; Channel 4’s revenue was up 1.9% and Channel 5 saw its ad revenue grew annually by 27.4% year on year in December. GMTV is also showing growth now, up by 7.5% and total satellite revenue rose by 16.5% to £30.3 million.

Amongst the ITV franchises, Central takes the largest share of revenue, at 16.6%, down 0.1% points on December 1998. Carlton, which accounted for 15.1% of ITV revenue, saws its share drop back by 1.3% points year on year.

Commercial Impacts Not a good month for ITV in terms of commercial impacts as all audience categories show a year on year decline, whilst the other channels see all audiences’ impacts improving. Notably, ABC1 Adults for channels 4 and 5 were up by 10.5% and 12.4% respectively, whilst ITV ABC1 Adults dropped back 1.8%. Satellite continues to improve across all audiences.

Costs Per Thousand Costs on ITV were down across the board during December, with ABC1 Adults falling by 4.9% and the other audience categories by even more. CPTs dropped similarly for each audience type on Channel 4, but Channel 5 saw costs starting rise for all audiences during December, with ABC1 Adults up 13.4%.

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