Report: British Online Services Expand TV Viewing Time

LONDON, August 13: Online
catch-up services like ITV.com’s broadband player and Demand Five had an
incremental effect on British viewing figures in the first half of this year,
according to a new report from Thinkbox.

The marketing body owned
by Channel 4, Five, GMTV, ITV, Sky Media, Turner Media Innovations and Viacom
Brand Solutions released its findings as part of its half-year review of the
British TV market. It notes that figures from the Broadcasters’ Audience
Research Board (BARB) indicate an average viewing time of 3.77 hours of
broadcast TV a day in the period, 2-percent up on the five-year average.
Broadcasters’ web services, such as ITV.com, Sky Player, iPlayer, 4OD and
Demand Five, are said to have contributed to those gains.

BARB data also reveals
that total commercial impacts—ads viewed in normal time—were up 6
percent on the same period last year. During January to June, Britons watched
2.4 billion broadcast TV ads a day, an average of 42 per person.

Commercial broadcast
viewing was also up, by 4 percent, with people in the U.K. watching an average
of 2.34 hours of commercial TV a day.

Tess Alps, Thinkbox’s
chief executive, noted: “This is a shaft of very bright light that cuts through
any economic gloom. Broadcast TV revenues held firm in the first half of 2008,
and, whatever the economic climate holds for the advertising market, I hope
these figures will underline the great strength and resilience of commercial
TV. Advertisers should be taking advantage of a medium that offers proven
effectiveness, increasing value and is growing. The advertisers who recognize
this will enjoy bottom lines as healthy as TV’s viewing figures.”

—By Mansha Daswani