Channel 4 and ITV June impacts slump

Both Channel 4 and ITV suffered a drop in their shares of commercial impacts last month, despite the return of Big Brother and the Euro 2008 football championship.

Multichannel benefited from terrestrial's loss of share, increasing its commercial impacts by 9.5% in June, year on year.

After a strong commercial performance in May, boosted by Britain's Got Talent and key Champions League fixtures, ITV's share of all-adult impacts fell by 9.8% year on year in June. In May, ITV's share of all-adult commercial impacts increased to 31.9%, from 30.2% in April. This fell back to 28% in June, while its ABC1s share of impacts fell from 28.6% to 25.5% between May and June.

ITV1's share of impacts among ABC1 adults fell by more than 10% in June. With the home nations failing to qualify, audiences for the Euro 2008 games were lower than for previous European Championships.

Big Brother, meanwhile, failed to draw in the same level of viewers as last year for Channel 4, with its share of impacts among all adults and ABC1 adults down 7.4% and 12.4% respectively year on year for June. Channel 4's time-shifted channel, Channel 4 +1, contributed an all-adults share of impacts of 1.1%.

Meanwhile, Five's all-adults share of impacts dipped by 9% year on year for June, with its ABC1 share falling 4.6% year on year.

Richard Oliver, Universal McCann managing partner, investment, said: "Euro 2008 can be seen as a moderate success for ITV. One of the problems with splitting it with the BBC is that a good match could fall on one of the BBC's nights."

ITV's TV ad revenues are expected to be down by as much as 13% year on year in September, with the TV ad market expected to be down between 4% and 5% for the year.

Paul Rowlinson, MindShare investment director, AV media, said the outlook for the TV ad market was worsening. "Our figures are down 5% to 6% for the last quarter," he added. "It is not audiences that are the problem, but the economy."

Source: Media Week