TV Market Round-Up – April 2006

April was a positive month for most terrestrial broadcasters with only GMTV seeing a fall in revenue year on year of 1.2%.

ITV1 will be relieved to see figures up on last year, aided by Easter falling later than usual. However, when positioned against last month’s huge 16% fall, little ground has been made up. Looking at 2006 up until the end of April, ITV1 is down 9.3% on the same period in 2005.

Channel 4 had a 3.3% rise in revenues, however Five was the big winner during April, with revenues increasing by 7.3% year on year. Five are mooted to be rebranding towards the end of the year and announced they had appointed VCCP as their new creative agency following a pitch process (see Five Signs Creative Agency Ahead Of Rebrand).

Satellite channels saw their revenues continue to increase, with figures up by 16.1% year on year.

ITV Franchises

For the first time this year, Central becomes the ITV franchise area providing the lions share of ITV1’s revenue, at 15.9%, replacing Carton at 15.2%.

Scotland and Meridian both saw dips in share of 0.9% points and 0.7% points respectively year on year.

West Country continued to provide the smallest share of revenue at just 2.1%.

April saw costs per thousands increase across the board for all the featured audiences on ITV1, Channel 4 and Five.

ITV1 witnessed the largest price rise occur on its Housewives with Children audience, which rose by 32.8% year on year. Meanwhile, Men and ABC1 Adults saw the smallest increases at 3.6% and 4.8% respectively.

Channel 4’s largest price rise occurred with ABC1 Adults, which rose by 14.9% to £20.11.

Five saw prices rise by over 15% for all featured audiences, with the exception of ABC1 Adults, which rose by 8.9% year on year.

ITV1 and Five both saw impacts down year on year across all the featured audiences. ITV1 suffered the worst fall, with Housewives with Children down by 23.7% year on year.

Five saw dips of between 7% and 9% across all featured audiences, with the exception of ABC1 Adults which only fell by 2.5%.

Channel 4 was the only terrestrial commercial broadcaster to experience increases in impacts during April, albeit at a low percentage rate, with Women and Housewives both increasing by 0.7% and 1.3% year on year respectively.

Satellite channel impacts all increased by at least 15% year on year, with Men leading the pack, increasing by 22.2% year on year.

Overall, total broadcast impacts were relatively stable, with Housewives with Children the only audience falling year on year, by 4.4%. Meanwhile, Men increased by 6% and ABC1 Adults rose by 3.6% year on year.

BARB: www.barb.co.uk