Television Viewing Round-Up – January 2008

It was a depressing start of the year for the main terrestrial broadcasters, with all channels dropping viewing share in all homes year on year for January.

Channel 4 saw the greatest decline, with share down 2.6 percentage points.

BBC One saw the gap between itself and ITV1 narrowed, with BBC One now reporting a 21.7% share compared to ITV1’s 19.1% share.

Channel 4 saw them most significant decline in its viewing share year on year for the month, dipping 2.6 percentage points.

The station’s share in all homes now stands at 8% for January, down from 10.6% in the same month in 2007. The reformatting of Celebrity Big Brother and its move to E4 no doubt played a part in this decline (see Celebrity Big Brother Reincarnation Fails To Hijack Ratings).

BBC Two now reports a higher share that C4, of 8.3%, after a decline year on year of 0.4 percentage points.

BBC One still holds the largest share in all homes, of 21.7%. This represents a 0.5 percentage point fall year on year, compared to a 0.1 percentage point drop experienced by ITV1.

ITV1 has, however, closed the gap on BBC One, despite the slight year on year dip, and now reports a viewing share in all homes of over 19%.

The station announced a major schedule overhaul, starting from 12th January (see ITV1 Overhauls Schedule), which included Coronation Street now having two episodes on a Friday evening and the return of the News At Ten (see ITV’s News At Ten Fails To Lure Viewers From BBC News).

Five’s share, meanwhile, was also down – from almost 5.5% in January 2007 to under 5% for January 2008.

Other Channels bucked the trend, rising 3.4 percentage points to take a 37.3% share.

BBC One, BBC Two and ITV1 bolstered their viewing share in digital homes in January, with Channel 4 and Five seeing a downturn.

Channel 4 was the worst affected in digital homes, reporting a 2.2 percentage point loss year on year for January. BBC Two’s share climbed slightly above C4’s share.

In January 2007, C4’s share in digital homes was 9.5%, with BBC Two’s at 7%. In January 2008, the stations report a share of viewing in digital homes of 7.3% and 7.4% respectively.

Five’s share in digital homes fell, by 0.2 percentage points, taking its share down to 4.5%.

ITV1 added the most in real terms to its share in digital homes, climbing to 18% in digital homes, from 17.3% in the same period the previous year.

BBC One remains the most dominant terrestrial channel in digital homes, and experienced a 0.6 percentage point rise in share in digital homes year on year for January. BBC One reports a share of 20.3% for the month, up from 19.7% the year before.

Other Channels saw a slight incline in share in digital homes, up from 41.6% in the first month of 2007 to 41.9% in 2008.

BBC One again retained its position as the most popular terrestrial channel in Freeview homes, with a 23% share in January.

The channel’s share in Sky homes now stands at 17.7%, whilst ITV1’s stands at 15.8%. ITV1 holds a share of a little under 20% in Freeview homes for the month.

Multichannel options continued their dominance, remaining the most popular channel choice in both Freeview and Sky homes. Viewing share of these digital channels is almost 51% in Sky homes and almost 34% in Freeview homes, with the difference due to the smaller channel choice available on Freeview.

Data to form this report can be found in the Television database on mediatel.co.uk within the “Weekly – Analysis by Platform” section. For any assistance please contact the helpdesk on 020 7439 7575.

BARB: www.barb.co.uk