Zenith Say Pay-TV Will Outstrip Ad Revenue By 2001

The latest Television report from Zenith Media predicts that pay-TV will account for 17% of all viewing by the end of 2001, the year it expects pay revenues to overtake advertising at £3.5 billion and £3.4 billion respectively in today’s prices.

Other parts of the report state:

• free-to-air television will be “very much alive and well”, commanding 45% of viewing compared to 47% today.
• satellite airtime is cheap, but buying is expensive to administer because there are many channels and sales houses.
• there is a special difficulty with premium channels. Viewers are here assumed to be less tolerant of ads, so there are no centre breaks on the premium film channels, nor yet is football “a game of four quarters”.
• the loss of 16-34 access will be made worse by the likely future migration of pay-TV viewing and subscriptions from basic channels to premium. It is also possible that this will force basic pay-TV to rationalise and become more useful to advertisers.
• the convenience factor of the movie and sports channels will probably inflate the household’s monthly pay-TV spend.
• the basic channels will have less money and less viewing to share out, so they will have to compete harder for advertising revenue, leaving the fittest to survive.

In terms of ITV Zenith asks “Where has the confident brand leader gone?” and goes on to say that ITV “has slept through the alarm clocks of a revitalised BBC and seriously commercial 4.” The media specialist does, however, welcome Formula 1’s arrival on ITV and praises US imports such as Sabrina, Clueless and Early Edition.

Zenith: 0171 224 8500