TV Market Round-Up – February 2007

Revenues fell in February across all the terrestrial channels, dipping overall by over 9% year on year. ITV1 bore the lion’s share of the fall, down over 12% year on year, or £14 million in real terms.

Channel 4 saw its revenues fall by 5% year on year, while Five dipped by nearly 3%. GMTV’s revenues, meanwhile, fell by 4.7% year on year.

Satellite channels bucked the downward trend, with an increase year on year of over 7%. Major rows broke out during February between BSkyB and Virgin Media, regarding the price BSkyB were allegedly asking for carriage of their basic channels on the Virgin Media platform (see Virgin Media Disputes Sky Price Claim).

ITV Franchises

Central provided the largest share of revenues within ITV1 in February, increasing by 0.8% points year on year and replacing Carlton, who were the largest supplying franchise the previous month and in February 2006.

West Country continued to provide the smallest share, with 2.2% of ITV1’s revenue coming from the franchise.

CPTs on ITV1 for all our featured audiences fell during February year on year. The smallest decrease was seen for Housewives with Children at 6%, while ABC1 Adults dropped by 14.5% year on year.

Channel 4 had a mixed month, with Adults, Women, Housewives and ABC1 Adults all seeing dips in their CPT year on year. Men increased by nearly 1.5% while Housewives with Children remained relatively static.

All Five’s CPTs increased during February year on year for our featured audiences, with Men and ABC1 Adults both increasing by over 11%.

ITV1 had a mixed month in February, as impacts for both Men and Housewives with Children both dropped year on year, but other featured audiences saw slight increases on last year’s levels. ABC1 Adults had the healthiest increase, up 2.5% year on year.

Similarly, Channel 4 had a mixture of rises and falls across our audiences. Women and ABC1 Adults both saw slight increases year on year, while Men and Housewives with Children both fell by over 5%.

Five had a poor month, as impacts for all the featured audiences fell year on year. Both Men and ABC1 Adults dropped by around 13% each, whilst Women fared best with a 6.5% drop.

Satellite channels saw all their impacts increase, however Housewives and Children was at a very modest 0.3%, in comparison to our other featured audiences that all increased by between 10%-15%.

The overall broadcast impacts all increased except for Housewives with Children which dropped by 3.8% year on year.

BARB: www.barb.co.uk