BARB don't need to update their panel.

If their panel is a random selection of homes then it will automatically pick up homes that take Sky Sports through BT or TUTV.

ie the 5,100 BARB homes are as equally likely to subscribe to Sky Sports via BT / TUTV as are any other homes.

Having said that, the number of homes so far taking Sky Sports via BT / TUTV is extremely unlikely to be large enough to have a noticeable effect on viewing figures.

There are currently approx 6m homes taking Sky Sports (approx 5.5m through Sky and just under 600k through VM). OFCOM are predicting that 1.5m homes will take Sky Sports via DTT by 2020 - ie it will take 10 years to build up to that figure.

Even 250,000 homes (and it won't be anything like that yet) would only be an increase of 4% in the number of Sky Sports homes.

Do you have a match average (4pm to 5.55pm)?

There is over an hour of intro / outro in that programme average.

1.6m is a very good programme average for a Super Sunday in mid August but it was of course a very attractive game.

I would expect Man Utd v Newcastle tonight to have a lower programme average (there is even more intro / outro) though the match average (whatever it was) may be fairly similar (at a guess marginally lower).

The impression I get from reading the Top Up TV forum is there is fairly significant demand at the moment. The call centre has apparently been inundated with people trying to activate the channels.

It's a little on the costly side but I can still see it being popular as most are happy with the entertainment channels on offer via Freeview. The thing which has been lacking is access to premium sports and movies. The arrival of Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 is a significant boon for DTT, and I wouldn't be surprised to see some Sky customers switching, especially as Freeview HD continues to expand its reach.

It will be interesting to see.

Unless BT / TUTV reports anything beforehand we will get the first concrete information when Sky report their September quarterly results at the end of October - they report wholesale revenue separately.

Sorry, it would take me a long time to get the match average - the document can be quite complicated.

Super Sunday peaked with 2.2m, and averaged just under 1m for the analysis pre and post.

I always assumed it was a bit more scientific than that.


http://www.barb.co.uk/about/tvMeasurement?_s=4

Thanks - analysis was approx 35% of programme.

So:

(0.65 * y) + (0.35 * 1.0) = 1.6

y = 1.9

Match average = 1.9m.

Of course (!)

But the point is that if it is a representative panel it should pick up the relevant BT / TUTV SS homes automatically with at least reasonable accuracy.

I doubt OFCOM does much bigger surveys than 5,100 homes anyway. So the BARB panel effectively amounts to as good a survey of BT / TUTV SS take-up as we are going to get anyway (other than Sky financials as posted above though Sky wholesale revenue number will be a mix of VM / BT / TUTV / Tiscali).

Spartcus is doing very well on Bravo 879,000 including +1 for w/e 8 Aug 2010

Contrary to popular belief, there must be a lot of Sky Sports subscribers, like myself, who don't watch football.

Have you any figures for the golf last night on Sky Sports 2?

So is the meaning of the Heartbeat figures and the demographics argument that no commercial channel can afford a programme that skews older?

If so, then it has to be the most powerful argument for the retention of the licence fee so that BBC can do so without such restraints.

After all we live in a population that is aging rapidly and in ten, twenty years most viewers will be older viewers. Even now younger viewers are far less loyal to TV against many other distractions.

How do we square the fact that TV is made to serve the interests of its viewers if the majority of those viewers are to be downgraded as being unattractive to advertisers?

Certainly not by a totally ad driven economy.

No wonder ITV are considering pay TV.

It's been an enormous success for Bravo when you look at the ratings the rest of its programming attracts. I'll be interested to see if Sky keep it on Bravo or move it to Sky1 for its next season. I think the latter.

Indeed.

But also bear in mind even subscribers who do watch football are not going to watch every match.

Look at it this way. Sky Sports is in approx 25% of homes. So a peak of 2.2m can be compared to a programme available in all homes getting a peak of 8.8m. That's a very high figure as regulars on this forum know.

Take a programme like Eastenders. I don't know its exact average but say it's about 8m. We don't know exactly but that would probably mean at least 12m, if not more, watch it at least FAIRLY often.

No it's not. People are far more likely to watch something they are paying a monthly subscription for.

I understand the point you are making and agree to a limited degree. It's certainly true that people who subscribe to Sky Sports are more likely to be interested in football than the average home.

But interestingly when a game is simulcast on Sky and terrrestrial then even in Sky homes just as many watch on terrestrial - so their payment hasn't made them more likely to watch on Sky.

I think the key point here is that amongst any demographic, there will always be large numbers of people not watching TV because they are otherwise occupied.

So even if 6m homes pay for Sky Sports you are never going to get an audience much above about 2.5m except in incredibly exceptional circumstances.

Most recent example, Champions League Final (May 22). Sky Sports 1 - 681,000, ITV1 - 3.17m + 102,000 HD.

Sky's average would have been brought down, as its coverage started a hour earlier.

So pretty much in line with penetration level.

It's not so much about skewing older. Consider the US for example. Dancing With The Stars, NCIS and The Good Wife were just named as the 3 oldest shows on broadcast TV with median ages of 57-58. They all got brought back this season despite this.

What's more important is the actual number of ABC1 (upmarket) and/or 16-34 viewers watching a programme. Shows which draw huge total audiences (Coronation Street, for example) will always sweep up a decent amount of advertiser desired viewers (10% of 10m is better than 20% of 4m). Unfortunately for Heartbeat, it doesn't have a particularly large audience and skews old. That's a dire combination especially if it's expensive as well.

On the other hand, a show which has a small audience but high concentration in a particular demographic can survive. This is partly how mid-size US cable networks can pump out 4 hours of original scripted content in a week.

Nearly every programme on TV skews old. The median age in the United Kingdom is 39 and most programmes are over that. The X Factor, often touted as a "young" show has a median age of around 39, IIRC. And it is a "young" show - but only in comparison to the rest of broadcast TV.

As ITV are seeing with drama, it's often easier to just make a crime procedural that will skew old but hope that the total audience is so large that it is commercially viable (and most ITV drama relies on ABC1 viewers rather than young viewers anyway). That's what CBS have done for years and it works out OK for them. Shows like NCIS and The Good Wife are successful because of the principle that 10% of 10m is better than 20% of 4m).


Yet the BBC seem as focussed on young viewers as anyone. Their argument being that they need to serve those who are underserved by TV - and according to the ratings, that's the young audience.

There are arguments (brand loyalty/disposable income) that make young viewers more attractive as well. But the core issue is simply that they are harder to reach which means that a show delivering a large number of them can command a premium for advertising. So we've ended up with commercial channels needing younger viewers who are attractive because they're rare and the BBC chasing them as well because they're underserved.

But if 5 - 6 million for a drama is 'not a particularly large audience' then how many dramas will have one?

This is similar to Holby City, Waterloo Road, Casualty, Law and Order: UK etc.

So in terms of size of audience its possibly about as good as you can expect for a weekly series.

Even Doctor Who was not getting much more for the last series (though it will certainly have far more younger viewers)

Still - how many ITV drama series will still be getting 5 million viewers after 2 years let alone 20?

They have tried lots of new ones and they usually fail to get anywhere close to this level.

I understand the older audience/skew/attractive ads concept (and indeed not really arguing that Heartbeat should be saved - as, at best, it needed a total revamp as it is very stale) but serial dramas other than soaps on any channel that attract much above 5 million are pretty much going to be a thing of the past soon.

So what constitutes realistic expectations?

Commercial media COULD afford to keep making it, but they chose to chase more lucrative markets.

I tend to think of 6m+ as being good, 7m+ as great*. 5m is decent, but it's "not particularly large" and when combined with the very weak audience profile, I guess it's not enough to make it worthwhile.

* I'm sure others will have different levels!


I think you've certainly got a point, particularly for the future. There's going to come a point where ITV won't be able to rely on getting huge audiences as you say. They're going to have to start focussing on delivering smaller audiences of what advertisers actually want.

Nowadays, it seems like for ITV the amount of total people that watch a drama is utterly irrelevant. 7m may watch a drama, but if only 0.5m are 16 to 34, then its worthless.

at the Must Be The Music & DSB ratings ... I expected them to be the other way around! I at least expected the X Factor build up to help at least week 1 of MBTM

I don't suppose many 16-34's will be attracted to one of their most expensive Autumn dramas, Downton Abbey.

It's one of the few things I'll be watching though. (I haven't been a 16-34, for many years!!).

From MattJ:

Sherlock - Demographic Breakdown
Children Aged 4 - 15 = 0.44m (23.9%)
Adults 16 - 34 = 1.43m (25.3%)
Adults 35 - 44 = 1.52m (35.5%)
Adults 45 - 54 = 1.83m (38.9%)
Adults 55 - 64 = 1.75m (38.2%)
Adults 65 + = 1.87m (29.5%)

A drama that appeals to everyone, then.