Commercial TV viewing rises
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Susan Boyle
Commercial TV viewing has had a record first six months of 2009, with weekly viewing and the number of ads people watched rising compared to the same period last year.
The latest figures from the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, released by TV marketing body Thinkbox, reveals that the average UK viewer watched 16.7 hours of commercial TV a week.
This was up 9.9 minutes a week on the record set in the same period last year. This is also up 42 minutes a week on the representative five-year average for January to June.
High rating programmes included Dancing on Ice, Britain’s Got Talent – in which Susan Boyle (pictured) was runner up – Coronation Street and the UEFA Champions League final.
The increase in commercial viewing has also meant a rise in the number of ads people watch.
According to BARB, the number of ads watched at normal speed was up 2% on the same period last year and up 16% over the last five years, with the average viewer watching 43 ads a day.
MPG broadcast director Chris Allen says the BARB findings show the TV industry is in “good health”. “Commercial TV is being consumed in unprecedented numbers, and this greater volume of impacts means that advertisers can benefit from the exceptional value for money which it offers,” he says.
Thinkbox chief executive Tess Alps adds that new TV technologies, such as digital recorders and HD are helping to enhance the TV viewing experience.
ITV is due to unveil half-year results on Thursday (6 August).
Readers' comments (3)
Anonymous | Wed, 5 Aug 2009 11:50 am
Golly Marketing Week where is your critical
sense of judgement.. To publish verbatim the propaganda of Thinkbox and other self serving pro ITV 'research' is pretty weak journalism.
As someone famous once said 'They would say this wouldnt they'. Yet strange few believe it as the evidence when ITV reports its financials this week will prove.
ITV is largely - not wholly - crap TV. The idea that an increasingly educated nation wants to watch such crap is specious nonsense. And you know it.
Warmest
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associate editor Branwell Johnson | Wed, 5 Aug 2009 12:15 pm
Thanks for comment.
Couple of points - these are BARB figures measuring audience and ad ratings, not ITV profitability and ad effectiveness. Are we arguing with BARB methodology and the stats?
Re: "increasingly educated nation?" England has just reported a drop in SATs scores and 25% of under 11s failed to reach accepted standards in literacy and maths.
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Lindsey Clay | Wed, 5 Aug 2009 2:09 pm
@Anonymous – I respect your right to comment and I know Thinkbox telling a positive story about commercial TV is to be expected (a bit odd if we didn’t, don’t you think?), but ‘They would say that wouldn’t they’ is possibly the weakest argument ever invented. And I’d trust the strength of your convictions more if you gave your actual name.
For the record, these are not Thinkbox’s figures – they are BARB’s. BARB is the most rigorous media research (putting inverted commas round it doesn’t call it into question) in the world and the accepted currency for billions of advertising pounds. If you have any equally robust but contradictory facts or figures please let us have them.
Also, major player though it certainly is (representing 21.6% of TV viewing during Jan-Jun), ITV is not a synonym for commercial TV.
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