Research and Markets: Europe's Public Sector Television Industry Takes Advantage of Advertising Recession and Improves Standing against Traditional Competitors.

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com) has announced the addition of Observatory of Public Service Broadcasting in Europe: 2004 to their offering.

This study is a monitor of market context, structural trends and scheduling. It provides the first comprehensive study of the state of public sector broadcasting in four of Europe's key markets - UK, Germany, France, and Spain.

A relatively encouraging picture of Europe's public service television industry emerges from the report - an industry that appears to be in reasonably robust shape. Between 2001 and 2002, public sector broadcasters took advantage of the difficulties that Europe's commercial, free-to-air TV groups were experiencing. Whilst the commercial television groups were all hit hard by the advertising recession, public sector broadcasters all improved their standing against their traditional competitors.

At the same time, European commercial television groups have appeared less able than their public sector counterparts to respond to the explosion of multi-channel TV (particularly in the UK). These new channels continue to erode the audience share (and to a lesser extent, share of advertising market) of the traditional players - both public and commercial.

The experiences of the UK highlight this trend - in 2001, BBC1 gained the top audience slot for the first time in 40 years. As recently as 1993, ITV1 had an audience share of 40.0%, versus BBC1's 32.7%. By 1997 this gap was reduced to only 2 points.

The research in this report was carried out between June and November 2003 by a research group of more than 20 specialist consultants and looks at two new indicators of competitiveness - one measures the broadcasters' advertising revenue per percentage audience share point and the other compares revenues from licence fees and all other sources per percentage audience share point. These indicators enable comparisons to be made between the competitiveness and cost effectiveness of different broadcasters.

Detailed analysis and comparisons between the four countries covered are provided for the following metrics:

--Viewing time

--Licence Fee

--Advertising income

--Top programmes

--Organisational structures

--Attitudes to new technology

--Strengths and weaknesses

--Audience shares

--Transmission schedules and strategies

--Programme Genres

--Generalist and thematic channels

--Employees

--Regulatory framework

The Key Findings of this report include:

--Multi-channel and pay TV audiences have grown from nominal levels ten years ago to 22.1% in UK and 27% in Germany, but to only 9.5% in France and 7.4% in Spain

--The largest loss of audience share in the four countries between 1993 and 2002 was ITV in the UK (-15.9%), followed by TF1 in France (-8.4%) and BBC1 (-6.5%)

--The biggest winners over the same period were multi-channel pay TV services in UK (+16.0%), Germany (+12.9%) and France and Spain (equal at +6.8%)

--During a period of economic crisis for broadcasters, licence fee income has provided a more stable economic crisis than advertising revenues: in 1998-2002, the total licence fee revenues grew at a compound rate of 9.5 for France Television and 5.4 for BBC.

--ZDF had the highest value of become per employee, while RTVNE had the worst.

--ARD and BBC were the largest broadcasters in terms of staff and total revenues: ARD 6,047m EUR revenues and 23,800 employees, BBC 5,617m EUR and 27,150 employees.

--The BBC controlled by far the largest number of channels (25), including the largest number of channels distributed internationally and by cable and satellite.

--The cost per share point was highest for ARD (EUR 88.3 million) and ZDF (EUR 82.3 million), and lowest for RTVE (EUR 14.2 million)

--Programme expenditure grew at a compound rate of 12.6% (RTVE), 9.1% (BBC), 5.5% (France Television), 5.0% (ZDF) and 4.8% (ARD)

--The growing appeal of regional public television and 'proximity' programming.

--Programming strategies show wide differences between countries: i.e. BBC 1 generates audience loyalty primarily through information output, ARD 1 and FR 2 through a good mix of information and fiction, while TVE 1 mitigates its mission to show information output with equal doses of fiction and entertainment.

--Ageing audiences is a problem across Europe for the principal sector broadcasters.

--BBC Worldwide is by far the most effective commercial arm of all the broadcasters.

--The BBC has a growing presence in the international market place.

--ARD's steadily increasing audience share reflects the attractions of regionally based television.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c4330