barb figures show 1% reach drop to sky one

[GuestUK]

Any broadcaster who loses almost 33% of their audience in just one month, on their most expensive import, ought to be very, very worried.

Should this not work both ways, however? I mean, If there was such a significant proportion of people watching Sky One, unlike what Virgin Media wanted to claim, then isn't that a problem for Virgin as well rejecting the channel claiming it wasn't worth the money and that they were rejecting the channel for the customers?

[accessjunky]

I might be wrong but I don't think VM said that nobody was watching Sky One but that the price being asked was more than it was worth. It's all a bit of a haze now! Oh for those heady days at the end of last month

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by GuestUK

Should this not work both ways, however? I mean, If there was such a significant proportion of people watching Sky One, unlike what Virgin Media wanted to claim, then isn't that a problem for Virgin as well rejecting the channel claiming it wasn't worth the money and that they were rejecting the channel for the customers?

If you're right then Virgin have 1/2 million customers who just lost (no pun intended) a programme they watched. Whether this is enough to make them switch suppliers is a different kettle of fish.

Originally Posted by GuestUK

Should this not work both ways, however? I mean, If there was such a significant proportion of people watching Sky One, unlike what Virgin Media wanted to claim, then isn't that a problem for Virgin as well rejecting the channel claiming it wasn't worth the money and that they were rejecting the channel for the customers?

Originally Posted by andygrif

If you're right then Virgin have 1/2 million customers who just lost (no pun intended) a programme they watched. Whether this is enough to make them switch suppliers is a different kettle of fish.

But it's not half a million customers, it's half a million viewers. For statistical purposes, the UK is reckoned to have 2.2 viewers per household (source). VM reaches roughly 3.5 million households, therefore used to provide a potential reach of about 7.7 million viewers to Sky One. Of those 7.7 million, just 500,000 were watching Lost, Sky One's top-rated programme. That is about 6.5% of VM viewers (assuming, of course, that the entire 500,000 drop is due to the loss of Sky One from VM - a reasonable assumption I think).

So Sky has lost 33% of its viewers for Lost, but VM has only pi**ed off 6.5% of its viewers in the process. Now tell me who's out on a limb here.

[joglynne]

I like your Maths.

Originally Posted by Chris T

But it's not half a million customers, it's half a million viewers. For statistical purposes, the UK is reckoned to have 2.2 viewers per household (source). VM reaches roughly 3.5 million households, therefore used to provide a potential reach of about 7.7 million viewers to Sky One. Of those 7.7 million, just 500,000 were watching Lost, Sky One's top-rated programme. That is about 6.5% of VM viewers (assuming, of course, that the entire 500,000 drop is due to the loss of Sky One from VM - a reasonable assumption I think).

So Sky has lost 33% of its viewers for Lost, but VM has only pi**ed off 6.5% of its viewers in the process. Now tell me who's out on a limb here.

Good Post!

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by Chris T

But it's not half a million customers, it's half a million viewers. For statistical purposes, the UK is reckoned to have 2.2 viewers per household (source). VM reaches roughly 3.5 million households, therefore used to provide a potential reach of about 7.7 million viewers to Sky One. Of those 7.7 million, just 500,000 were watching Lost, Sky One's top-rated programme. That is about 6.5% of VM viewers (assuming, of course, that the entire 500,000 drop is due to the loss of Sky One from VM - a reasonable assumption I think).

So Sky has lost 33% of its viewers for Lost, but VM has only pi**ed off 6.5% of its viewers in the process. Now tell me who's out on a limb here.

Not that I am arguing to the contrary, but I don't actually see what your arithmetic actually proves.

Just as a point of order too, bear in mind that not all Virgin Media customers have TV and not all VM TV customers had Sky One, so it's not as simple an equation to come up with. Also, your assumption means that both of the 2 people in the average household a) watches every programme together and b) only has one TV in the house.

Not that it really makes much difference of course, the only equation that matters to either company is the bottom line figure, which is not going to be decided (much to either sides dismay I am sure) over a single programme that MOST people in the country have no interest in watching anyway....now there's a stat for you, 50-odd million people don't watch lost every week!

[King Of Fools]

Originally Posted by andygrif

Just as a point of order too, bear in mind that not all Virgin Media customers have TV and not all VM TV customers had Sky One, so it's not as simple an equation to come up with.

The Virgin Media 3.3 million figure is the number of customers who have TV (VM have far more broadband customers). Also, AFAIK, every VM TV package had Sky One as standard, even the free TV pack.

Originally Posted by King Of Fools

The Virgin Media 3.3 million figure is the number of customers who have TV (VM have far more broadband customers). Also, AFAIK, every VM TV package had Sky One as standard, even the free TV pack.

But how many of that " captive audience " actually watch the lost ( no pun intended ) channels ?

[King Of Fools]

Originally Posted by arcamalpha2004

But how many of that " captive audience " actually watch the lost ( no pun intended ) channels ?

Based on Chris T's calculations, only 6.5%.

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by King Of Fools

The Virgin Media 3.3 million figure is the number of customers who have TV (VM have far more broadband customers). Also, AFAIK, every VM TV package had Sky One as standard, even the free TV pack.

I'm not so sure. According to this source the combined sum of digital TV viewers of ntl and Telewest was 2.6m - ok it was at the end of 2005, but unless Virgin have added 3/4m new TV viewers in just over a year then 3.3m is probably not correct.

Also, I am happy to be proved wrong on this, but I am pretty sure that the free viewers did not get Sky One. Perhaps different areas had different packages.

Originally Posted by King Of Fools

Based on Chris T's calculations, only 6.5%.

But as stated, these calculations are not correct as they assume that 2.2 people watch the TV at any time in every houehold, and are based on 3.3m viewers from Virgin.

Originally Posted by andygrif

I'm not so sure. According to this source the combined sum of digital TV viewers of ntl and Telewest was 2.6m - ok it was at the end of 2005, but unless Virgin have added 3/4m new TV viewers in just over a year then 3.3m is probably not correct.

Also, I am happy to be proved wrong on this, but I am pretty sure that the free viewers did not get Sky One. Perhaps different areas had different packages.



But as stated, these calculations are not correct as they assume that 2.2 people watch the TV at any time in every houehold, and are based on 3.3m viewers from Virgin.

This is a RTF format report on the Ofcom website, which states that by Q3 2006, NTL and Telewest combined had 3.3 million viewers (See Section 1: Overview: Key Findings). Only 2.8 million of them were on digital, but this is not relevant as Sky One was carried on analogue.

This is an article on the British Film Institute website which confirms that 2.2 viewers per household is the standard figure used by the industry when converting viewing households to viewing individuals (see paragraph 5).

The numbers I used and my basis for using them are sound. If you don't like my conclusions, you're going to have to find another way of attacking them.

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by Chris T

The numbers I used and my basis for using them are sound. If you don't like my conclusions, you're going to have to find another way of attacking them.

As said, I am not arguing to the contrary. I said before I fail to see what your statistics actually prove in the context of what was being discussed.

Whilst there may well be 3.3m (not the 3.5m you originally based your sums on) Virgin TV customers, not all of them had Sky One. I don't know how many did or did not, but I can guarantee that not all did.

Finally, again, your stats state that TV viewing households have on average 2.2 viewers each, but as I said, and you have not included this in your maths, you are assuming that both of them are watching the TV whenever the TV is being watched, which is simply not human nature all of the time. Perhaps it is in your house, but it certainly is not in mine.

Therefore, if you're going to use these stats to prove something, you need to say what is is you're trying to prove and do so by using a less simplistic (i.e more accurate) manner to prove it

Just repeating what you said before doesn't a fact make

Originally Posted by andygrif

As said, I am not arguing to the contrary. I said before I fail to see what your statistics actually prove in the context of what was being discussed.

Whilst there may well be 3.3m Virgin TV customers, not all of them had Sky One. I don't know how many did or did not, but I can guarantee that not all did.

Finally, again, your stats state that TV viewing household have 2.2 viewers, but as I said, and you have not included this in your maths, you are assuming that both of them are watching the TV whenever the TV is on.

Therefore, if you're going to use these stats to prove something, you need to say what is is you're trying to prove and do so by using a less simplistic (i.e more accurate) manner to prove it

Just repeating what you said before doesn't a fact make

The figure of 2.2 viewers as quoted by the BFI is not a figure for average occupancy of a household, nor is it an average number for total people who like to watch TV in a household - if it were, then you would be justified in objecting to my use of it.

The figure is the standard muliplication factor used when determining how many individuals watched a programme, where the raw statistics are expressed as households rather than individuals. This means that - presumably - BARB has research that shows that when a TV is tuned to a particular programme in an average house, an average number of 2.2 people will be watching it. It does explain this in the article I linked to - I'm wondering whether you actually read it?

As for the number of Sky viewers on cable - I really do think you're splitting hairs. The majority of combinations of channels offered by VM, past and present, include Sky One. I don't see that you have any basis to show a significant variance from the figure I have used. Certainly you've done rather less well than I have at bringing actual facts to this discussion, rather than conjecture that happens to back up your viewpoint. You might do well to heed your own advice about merely repeating statements not making them factual.

You still don't see what the stats prove in the context of the discussion. Well, specifically the OP suggested (based on less than a full week's stats as it turns out) that Sky has barely been dented by the loss of carriage on VM.

I suggest otherwise - they appear to have lost about a third of their veiwers for Lost. (Incidentally, that proportion is broadly in line with the split of cable/satellite viewers in the UK, so perhaps we have some evidence for 3.3 million being a reasonable estimate of Sky One's reach on cable after all, but I digress)

I went a step further and attempted to show that the whole 'crisis' is a bigger deal for Sky than it is for VM. Sky has lost a third of its viewers, and therefore a third of its justification for advertising rates, for its most expensive programme ever.

VM, on the other hand, has risked the ire of just 6.5% of its viewers in the same crisis. Those 500,000 viewers will mean a lot to Sky and their advertisers. They do not mean nearly as much to VM.

[popper]

Originally Posted by Chris T

This is a RTF format report on the Ofcom website, which states that by Q3 2006, NTL and Telewest combined had 3.3 million viewers (See Section 1: Overview: Key Findings). Only 2.8 million of them were on digital, but this is not relevant as Sky One was carried on analogue.

This is an article on the British Film Institute website which confirms that 2.2 viewers per household is the standard figure used by the industry when converting viewing households to viewing individuals (see paragraph 5).

The numbers I used and my basis for using them are sound. If you don't like my conclusions, you're going to have to find another way of attacking them.

interesting Chris, whatever way you look at it the premiere program isnt werth the cash layed down, even for the advertising revenue payed out.

its also amazing given your no's that there appears to be only at best half a million VM customers on analogue only service, of those, how many can not get use of cable modems/broadband?.

for 500.000 old user boxs surely it makes sense to pull the analogue right now and open up the digital TV bandwidth for everyone else, there most be a profit saving there given a mear 500.000 or less old box users , what can be done to help them move over to at least a simple and cheap temp IPTV STB that can be cobbled together quick, or just give them a cheap broadband only deal and free up the network for better things.

given we now have 3 weeks BARB you might think we would see a slight (or perhaps far better?) increase in the no's this week as the households that moved over from VM to sky came online, but that doesnt appear to be the case, wonder why , didnt that many move over after all?, perhaps this extra repeate weekend (it didnt already happen did it?) will show up next update.