Sky audience jumps 9pc

By ALAN PERROTT

Ratings for subscriber network Sky Television have leaped at the expense of the major free-to-air channels, viewer figures released by ACNielsen reveal.

Channel share ratings for a variety of age groups in the Auckland region and nationally show the network's ratings have risen by up to 9 per cent in the past year, a huge leap for an industry that equates each point to about $6.5 million in earnings.

Figures for the 20-year-old to 54-year-old group in the Auckland region show the Sky channels attracted a daily average of 22 per cent of the viewing audience between January and July, the same as TV3.

The same results show a drop in channel share for the major free-to-air stations - TV1, TV2 and TV3 - of up to 6 per cent each for the same period compared with January to July last year.

Sky Television chief executive John Fellet said Sky's growth reflected international trends towards pay TV, but attributed most of the rise to the popularity of new services, the Disney and History channels and UKTV.

According to the network's annual report, released yesterday, Sky subscribers increased by almost 34,000 to 576,602 in the past 12 months.

About 85 per cent of Sky customers are residential digital subscribers.

Britain's BSkyB this month announced it had attracted 81,000 new subscribers to its base of 7.4 million between April and June.

Mr Fellet said more than 40 per cent of New Zealand homes now had either Sky's digital or UHF service and total subscriptions had been growing by an average of 2.5 per cent each year.

While pleased with the, he said it would not necessarily suck advertising revenue from thefree-to-air channels.

"We get less advertising than the number of eyeballs we attract should deserve, but people watching Sky don't want to be swamped with ads. So our ratings probably won't affect the other channels too much.

"We have a different focus - it's not better or worse than what they're doing, it's just different."

Mr Fellet predicted a 50 per cent increase in subscriptions over the next 10 years.

"Given our steady growth and looking at the United States where 80 per cent of homes have pay TV, I'd say we have a long way to go before we slow down."

Peter Myles, media director for advertising agency Colenso BBDO, said the growth of pay television in this country was expected, although Sky's recent success had taken many by surprise.

But improving ratings did not necessarily mean increasing advertising revenue.

"When you talk about Sky, you talk about a multitude of channels," he said. "So it's not so easy to buy a good spot for your ad.

"Do people stick around to watch the ads between the movies? I'm not so sure."

TVNZ spokeswoman Avon Adams suggested the figures reflected growing diversity within the industry.

Roger Beaumont, TV3's head of communications, said the channel was not concerned about Sky's performance - provided TV3 ratings remained strong in the 18-to-49-year-old demographic.