January – June 2009 total broadcast TV viewing time increased by 18 minutes a per week compared with the same period over the past 5 years, with commercial viewing up 42 minutes per week to 16 hours and 8 minutes, according to BARB/ Tech Edge figures.
Impacts (an impact = the viewing of one ad by one person) grew 2% versus the same period last year, with growth across all key audiences. Half year impacts for 2009 were the highest for over five years – up 16% overall for individuals.
AC Nielsen figures show that in the first 6 months of 2009 £1,618,244,844 was spent on TV spot advertising. This excludes sponsorship, Advertising Funded Programming (AFP) and interactive revenue. This figure is down 16% compared with the same period in 2008. With falling demand for advertising space, TV airtime is now at its cheapest since 1993, after peaking in 2000, just before the dotcom bubble burst.
Digital Switchover is well on course as digital penetration on main sets rose to 89.2%. Including secondary sets, that now equates to 73.1% of all TV sets in the UK being digitally enabled.
DTRs (Digital TV Recorders) are now in about 34% of UK homes according to Ofcom (Q1 2009 report), with Sky+ remaining the dominant provider of DTR services. Freeview+ sales continue to grow, however.
42% of TV sets in the UK are High Definition ready – but the majority of these are not connected to an HD service so are not HD enabled. Sky is also the main provider of HD in the UK with over 1m subscribers.
Online or Web TV’s popularity continues to rise as more people discover the benefits of watching online in addition to broadcast TV.
