Category Archives: Television
SVOD Disruption – Could DTT be the Antidote?
Despite some notable mass audience success, with a much-anticipated Royal Wedding and popular 2018 FIFA World Cup, it has been yet another tough year for schedule-based television in the UK. The annual BARB measured Individuals 4+ consolidated (Live + 7-Days) … Continue reading →
The DTT Platform – Succeeding in the Face of the SVOD Challenge
In my previous note I discussed how 2017 was another challenging year for schedule based television in the UK, with the SVOD services (Netflix, Amazon, Now TV, etc.) in particular taking a bigger slice of the total video viewing pie, … Continue reading →
The Death of Television – Is it Finally Happening?
Although year-on-year schedule based UK television viewing, as measured by BARB’s consolidated (Live + 7-days catch-up) Total TV audience, has been in decline since 2012, it was beginning to show signs of levelling off with a very notable slowing in … Continue reading →
Forecasting the Audience Impact of Sky’s Proposed EPG Reshuffle
The announcement by Sky early last month that it was planning a radical overhaul of the increasingly complex Sky EPG, with a reshuffle target date of March 2018 after an appropriate consultation and adjustment period, will undoubtedly have set alarm … Continue reading →
EPG Prominence and Channel Performance – It Still Matters
In the late noughties, I was at a conference where one of the delegates noted how EPGs (electronic programme guides) with their ordered lists of channels and schedule information were so archaic that they might as well be considered ‘Victorian’, … Continue reading →
Trends in Commercial Impacts – or How to Get Ahead in Television Advertising
Not only has year-on-year quarterly BARB measured Total TV viewing (i.e. how many people, on average, are watching TV at any given point in time) in the UK risen for the first time in over 3 years from 8.25 million … Continue reading →
Expectations versus Reality: TV Viewing by Age Group
Over the last decade in particular, our industry has been plagued by poor predictions resulting from an overestimation of the disruptive viewing impact of technological change. To counter this, it has been suggested that any new forecast should be accompanied … Continue reading →
Forecasting the Total TV Audience in 2020
Annual BARB measured television viewing levels in the UK have fallen again significantly for the second year running, further highlighting the end of the exceptionally high and stable levels of Total TV viewing that were a hallmark of the new … Continue reading →
Total TV Viewing Trends (2010 – 2013)
Annual BARB measured television viewing levels in the UK have fallen significantly for the first time since the advent of the new BARB panel in January 2010. Having fluctuated at just over 240 minutes a day during the three year … Continue reading →
EPG Prominence Back in the Spotlight
The long awaited communications strategy paper (published by the DCMS at the end of July) has reconfirmed the government’s support for the abolition of PSB retransmission fees, which was also the topic of my previous research note. Another topic of … Continue reading →