Paper readership dips 5m in 15 years
Stephen Brook, press correspondent
Guardian Unlimited,
Friday December 21 2007
The number of UK adults reading at least one national daily newspaper on an average day fell from 26.7 million in 1992 to 21.7 million last year, according to research.
In 1992, 59% of adults read one or more national daily newspapers, compared with 45% last year, the figures from a National Readership Survey commissioned by the House of Lords communications committee found.
However, two national daily and three Sunday titles went against the trend - the Daily Mail, the Times, the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times and Mail on Sunday.
The Daily Express and Daily Mirror were hardest hit, as were the People and Sunday Express, according to NRS.
Readership of the Times, which boosted its circulation with an aggressive cost-cutting strategy in the mid-1990s, increased 69% and the percentage of the UK population it reached increased 59% over the period. Daily Mail readership increased 18% and its reach was up 11%.
The Daily Express's readership has fallen 54% over the past 15 years, the NRS survey found, while its reach fell 57%.
For the Daily Mirror and its Scottish sister paper the Daily Record, readership fell 49% while reach was down 52%.
The overall number of people reading one or more national Sunday newspapers fell 21% and their reach fell 26% over the period.
Bucking the downward trend, Sunday Telegraph readership has risen 6% since 1992, readership of the Sunday Times is up 2% and the Mail on Sunday grew by 4%.
However, no Sunday paper managed to increase the percentage of the population it reached.
The People's readership fell 70% over the period, while its reach was down 72%.
Readership of the Sunday Express dropped 59%, while its reach declined 61%.
The Lords communications committee commissioned the NRS research about readership of print titles as part of its inquiry into media ownership and the news.
NRS data showed that decline in national daily newspaper readership was steepest among younger adults over the past 15 years.
The overall number of 15- to 24-year-old readers fell by 37%, while the decline among 25- to 34-year-old readers was 40%.
However, the number of 55- to 64-year-old readers increased by 4%.
"With 45% of the population reading one of the top 10 national newspapers on an average day it is clear that ownership of the press remains an important issue," said Lord Fowler, the chairman of the communications committee.
"In the new year the committee will be looking in detail at whether media ownership is appropriately regulated and how the public interest can be upheld."
The survey did not include newspaper website traffic, or readership of free titles and of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish papers
Friday, 28 December 2007
Celebrity Big Brother ad revenue in peril from E4 switch
Monday December 24 2007
Celebrity Big Brother's move to E4 next month as a temporary "safety valve" to protect the programme following this year's racism row and could cost the programme at least 30% in ad revenue, according to media buyers.
The decision to move the programme to digital channel E4 in January and change its format was born from a need to "rest" the CBB format after the Shilpa Shetty racism scandal, but one media buyer has criticised the move as "landfill" programming in place of a more permanent solution.
Channel 4 wants to refresh the programme, avoid controversy, but also honour its three-year deal with Endemol to air two series per year.
Advertising on E4 is at least 30% cheaper than on the main Channel 4 network and audiences are guaranteed to be somewhere between 33% and 50% smaller, according to media buyers.
"Channel 4 will sustain audience decline year-on-year, it is inevitable because Celebrity Big Brother ironically did really well, for all the wrong reasons, but the reality is that Channel 4 wants to get the summer right," said the director of one media planning and buying agency.
"This is like a test, a safety valve, to protect a key audience year-on-year. However I think that it is a landfill rather than a solution, it is not an alternative [to CBB]".
In commercial terms, Big Brother on Channel 4 means mass audiences that equate to sizeable revenues from advertisers keen to reach the valuable, youthful fan base, but this scenario cannot be replicated by running a version on smaller digital channel E4.
From a narrow, commercial point of view, the Shilpa Shetty racism row in last year's Celebrity Big Brother was a success for Channel 4 - the departure of Carphone Warehouse as sponsor notwithstanding.
"Big Brother is a very important show for Channel 4 and the network, it is very popular with a core part of our audience," said a spokesman for Channel 4. "We felt that airing it on E4 is a good way to refresh the format and have more fun with it".
The programme will be refreshed partly by a change of team - the E4 version will have a largely different from the crew from the flagship summer series.
In the new format, Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, celebrities will act as Big Brother for a group of 18- to 24-year-old housemates.
Scandal aside, the key audience who tuned into CBB last year was usually between 2 million and 3 million says the media buyer, and E4 will be doing well to capture 1 million per show in January.
One media buyer said that the move to E4 would help Channel 4's long-term strategic move to continue to build the star performer of Channel 4's digital portfolio.
"Being on E4 is part of a strategy to make E4 well developed in the digital world," argues Chris Hayward, the head of investment at ZenithOptimedia.
"It may not be as developed as the main channel but it is becoming increasingly important, over the next five years the strategy has to be to make the family of digital channels as strong as can be".
ZenithOptimedia predicts that the "digital offshoots" of ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five will account for 21% of total ad revenues by 2012, up from 10% last year and just 2% in 2002.
E4's ad revenues have experienced near 20% year-on-year growth since 2006 climbing from £81.6m to a forecast £115m by the end of next year.
To underline the importance of the channel within Channel 4's overall digital portfolio, which includes channels such as More4 and Film4, total ad revenue is predicted to be £144m this year and up 20% to £171m by the end of 2008.
Monday December 24 2007
Celebrity Big Brother's move to E4 next month as a temporary "safety valve" to protect the programme following this year's racism row and could cost the programme at least 30% in ad revenue, according to media buyers.
The decision to move the programme to digital channel E4 in January and change its format was born from a need to "rest" the CBB format after the Shilpa Shetty racism scandal, but one media buyer has criticised the move as "landfill" programming in place of a more permanent solution.
Channel 4 wants to refresh the programme, avoid controversy, but also honour its three-year deal with Endemol to air two series per year.
Advertising on E4 is at least 30% cheaper than on the main Channel 4 network and audiences are guaranteed to be somewhere between 33% and 50% smaller, according to media buyers.
"Channel 4 will sustain audience decline year-on-year, it is inevitable because Celebrity Big Brother ironically did really well, for all the wrong reasons, but the reality is that Channel 4 wants to get the summer right," said the director of one media planning and buying agency.
"This is like a test, a safety valve, to protect a key audience year-on-year. However I think that it is a landfill rather than a solution, it is not an alternative [to CBB]".
In commercial terms, Big Brother on Channel 4 means mass audiences that equate to sizeable revenues from advertisers keen to reach the valuable, youthful fan base, but this scenario cannot be replicated by running a version on smaller digital channel E4.
From a narrow, commercial point of view, the Shilpa Shetty racism row in last year's Celebrity Big Brother was a success for Channel 4 - the departure of Carphone Warehouse as sponsor notwithstanding.
"Big Brother is a very important show for Channel 4 and the network, it is very popular with a core part of our audience," said a spokesman for Channel 4. "We felt that airing it on E4 is a good way to refresh the format and have more fun with it".
The programme will be refreshed partly by a change of team - the E4 version will have a largely different from the crew from the flagship summer series.
In the new format, Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, celebrities will act as Big Brother for a group of 18- to 24-year-old housemates.
Scandal aside, the key audience who tuned into CBB last year was usually between 2 million and 3 million says the media buyer, and E4 will be doing well to capture 1 million per show in January.
One media buyer said that the move to E4 would help Channel 4's long-term strategic move to continue to build the star performer of Channel 4's digital portfolio.
"Being on E4 is part of a strategy to make E4 well developed in the digital world," argues Chris Hayward, the head of investment at ZenithOptimedia.
"It may not be as developed as the main channel but it is becoming increasingly important, over the next five years the strategy has to be to make the family of digital channels as strong as can be".
ZenithOptimedia predicts that the "digital offshoots" of ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five will account for 21% of total ad revenues by 2012, up from 10% last year and just 2% in 2002.
E4's ad revenues have experienced near 20% year-on-year growth since 2006 climbing from £81.6m to a forecast £115m by the end of next year.
To underline the importance of the channel within Channel 4's overall digital portfolio, which includes channels such as More4 and Film4, total ad revenue is predicted to be £144m this year and up 20% to £171m by the end of 2008.
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
The number of complaints to Ofcom from disgruntled viewers of The X Factor claiming they were unable to vote for their favourite contestant during Saturday's final has rocketed from 80 yesterday to more than 1,500 this afternoon.
It is understood that the vast majority of the complainants were from viewers of the ITV1 show who said they were unable to cast a vote for Rhydian Roberts, the favourite, who came second to Leon Jackson in a surprise result.
An Ofcom spokeswoman today confirmed the figure of 700 complaints, which is expected to rise even further throughout the day.
ITV was unable to confirm the number of complaints it had itself received at the time of publication.
"I must have tried calling in about 50 to 100 times by hitting the redial button to vote for Rhydian, but I didn't get through once," wrote one viewer on The X Factor website's talk board.
Radio stations in Rhydian's native Wales said they had been inundated with calls from angry fans.
A spokeswoman for Ofcom said the regulator would look into the complaints but declined to give a time frame for the investigation.
The show's producer, TalkbackThames, yesterday admitted that said some Virgin Media cable TV customers had experienced problems getting through because of high call volumes.
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