TV Market Round-Up – February 2009

The television market place continues to suffer, with commercial revenue down across the board for February. Five recorded the biggest fall, down 28% on February 2008’s total to stand at £14.03 million.

Elsewhere, ITV1’s woes continued, with revenues plunging by over 17% during February. The commercial network, said to be planning a legal challenge to government’s ban on product placement (see ITV attacks government ban on product placement), pulled in £81.62 million (down from £98.81 million in 2008). Things weren’t much better for breakfast channel GMTV, with its monthly revenue standing at £4.09 million.

Meanwhile Channel 4, whose plans to tie up with BBC Worldwide were recently played down by Lord Carter (see Lord Carter plays down C4/BBC Worldwide proposals), recorded a 12% year on year decrease in revenue.

Total Satellite’s revenue total decreased by 9.5% compared to February 2008’s figures, standing at £77.62 million.

ITV Franchises

According to our agency estimates, Carlton is now the greatest share provider of ITV1 revenue. The London weekday franchise area accounted for 16.05% of the network’s revenue, up by 1.3 percentage points year on year

Last month’s top spot holder Central was responsible for 15.63% of the network’s revenue. The Midlands franchise area saw its share fall by 0.12 percentage compared to February 2008.

Westcountry provided the smallest share of ITV1’s revenue, with 1.99% of the network’s total income, down 0.04 percentage points on last year’s figures.

All of ITV1’s costs per thousands were cheaper among our featured audiences during February. The audience with the greatest year on year decrease was ABC1 Adults, down by 20.3% to cost £12.93.

Channel 4’s cost per thousands price also decreased across all our featured audiences. Housewives with Children recorded the biggest reduction in price, down by 13.1% to cost £36.96.

Five once again saw big CPT price decreases among our featured audiences. The biggest CPT price fall came from ABC1 Adults, 22.9% cheaper when compared to February 2008.

All but one of our featured audiences fell for ITV1 amongst commercial impacts, with ABC1 Adults the only audience to see an increase (up 3.6% year on year). The largest fall was Women, down 2.5% on February 2008.

Channel 4 saw all but one of our featured audiences decrease during February 2008. The only audience to improve year on year commercial impacts was Housewives with Children (up 1.3%).

Five’s commercial impacts fell for all of our featured audiences during February 2009. The biggest drop was seen by Men, down by 11.9% year on year.

All of our featured audiences improved on the previous year’s figures for Total Broadcast, with the best performance coming from Housewives (up 4.3% year on year).

BARB: www.barb.co.uk