TV Market Round-Up – January 2009

January was a difficult month all round, with all channels recording a year on year decrease in commercial revenue. The biggest fall was recorded by Five, which was down 42.8% on January 2008’s total to stand at £11.06 million.

Following the release of its annual results (see ITV’s profits down by 41%), ITV1 continued to suffer declining revenue intake. During January the channel posted a monthly revenue total of £92.7million, down 14.7% on 2008’s figures. ITV1 breakfast channel GMTV saw its revenue dip by 5.9% year on year.

Meanwhile Channel 4, which recently rejected ITV’s “radical” idea of a merger (see Channel 4 chairman rejects ITV/Five merger), saw commercial ad revenue decrease by 7.5% year on year.

Total Satellite’s revenue total decreased by 17.9% compared to January 2008, to stand at £70.4 million.

ITV Franchises

According to our agency estimates, Central retains its position as the greatest share provider of ITV1 revenue, despite recording a year on year percentage point decrease of 0.31. The Midland franchise area took 15.85% share of the network’s total revenue.

The next biggest share was for London weekday franchise area Carlton, at 15.1%, although it recorded a year on year decline (1.06 percentage points).

Westcountry provided the smallest share of ITV1’s revenue, with 2.09% of the network’s total income, up 0.07 percentage points on January 2008.

All of ITV1’s costs per thousands were cheaper amongst our featured audiences during January. The audience with the greatest year on year decrease was Men, down by 14.7% to cost £13.59.

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 16% to cost £30.94.

Five saw massive CPT price decreases amongst featured audiences, at least 40% across the board. The biggest CPT price fall came from ABC1 Adults, 46.3% cheaper when compared to January 2008.

All but one of our featured audiences fell for ITV1 amongst commercial impacts, with Men the only audience to remain unchanged. The audience that fell the most was Housewives with Children, down 7.3% on January 2008.

Channel 4 saw all but two of our featured audiences decrease during January 2008. The two audiences to improve their year on year commercial impacts were Housewives (up 1.5%) and Housewives with Children (up 10%)

Five had a rise in commercial impacts for all but the Housewives with Children audience, which was down by 3.6%. The best performance came from ABC1 Adults, up by 6.5% on January 2008.

All of our featured audiences managed to improve on the previous year’s figures for Total Broadcast. The best performance came from Men, up 8.2% year on year.

BARB: www.barb.co.uk