TV Market Round-Up – December 2007

December was a very good month for the terrestrial channels, with only ITV1 recording a marginal year on year decrease of revenue intake.

Across the whole ITV1 network revenue decreased by 0.9% compared to December 2006, to stand at a total of £109.9 million. With the recent return of News At Ten and the revamped weekday and weekend schedule, ITV1 seems to be in good shape for the start of 2008 (see NewsLine).

Five had the best year on year increase, up 4.7% to stand at £22.1 million. The next best performance was from Channel 4, up 3.3% to £48.8 million for December 2007.

After breaking the £100 million barrier last month, Satellite posted a lower total for the traditionally weaker month of December. The estimated revenue for all multi-channel stations stood at £71.9 million, up by 14.8% year on year.

The best year on year performance within ITV franchise areas came from Carlton, which improved its take of network revenue by 0.5 percentage points, to stand at 14.37%.

Central kept the mantle of the largest share provider of ITV1 revenue. For the month of December the Midlands franchise area had a 16.34% share of the network’s revenue, despite a year on year drop of 0.04 percentage points.

Provider of the smallest share of ITV1 revenue remains West Country, with the station attaining 2.00% for December (up 0.09 percentage points year on year).

ITV1 was cheaper to reach across all but one of our featured CPT audiences during December, with only Housewives with Children costing more than the 2006 price.

The cost of reaching a thousand Housewives with Children was £46.3 (4.4% more costly than 2006’s price). The audience that recorded the greatest decline in year on year price was ABC1 Adults, 4.1% cheaper than a year ago.

For Channel 4 all featured audiences were cheaper to reach in comparison to December 2006. The cost of reaching a thousand Men on the channel fell by 7.1%, to stand at £14.73.

Just like the previous month Five had across the board price increases for our featured audiences. ABC1 Adults recorded the dearest percentage increase, up 32.8% year on year.

The reasons behind ITV1’s cheaper cost per thousands can be seen, with the previously stated featured audiences conversely increasing or declining year on year. The increased cost of reaching a thousand Housewives with Children can be attributed to the decrease in the number of impacts during December (down 5.1% year on year).

Channel 4 saw all commercial impacts for our featured audiences increase year on year for December. The biggest rise was for Men, going up by 11.2% year on year.

Five saw falls across all featured audiences, with ABC1 Adults dropping the most (down 21.1% year on year).

All Total Broadcast’s featured audiences rose year on year. Men achieved the biggest gain, up 5.6% on December 2006.

BARB: www.barb.co.uk