BBC and ITV lose out as Christmas viewers switch over to pay TV

Britain took a big step into the world of non-terrestrial television at Christmas. Figures released yesterday show an increase in the number of people watching multichannel programmes at the expense of the BBC and ITV.

Satellite, digital and cable stations including Sky, MTV, the Disney channel and Discovery made up almost a quarter (22.4 per cent) of the viewing during the Christmas week – a 13.7 per cent increase on the same period last year. Combined multichannel viewing – covering more than 200 stations – overtook ITV1 for the first time during the Christmas week, while the BBC also lost viewers, the figures compiled by the Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB) reveal.

Sport helped to boost the non-terrestrial figures, with Manchester United's Boxing Day match against Middlesbrough attracting an audience of 2.19 million for Sky Sports, while The Simpsons on Sky 1 was the most popular entertainment programme on a non-terrestrial channel, attracting almost a million viewers. Dr Dolittle 2 was the biggest multichannel film (Sky Movies Premier) with 700,000 viewers.

ITV1's share of the audience fell 8.6 per cent from last year to 22.2 per cent while BBC1 saw a less dramatic decline of 3.8 per cent to 30 per cent.

An ITV spokeswoman insisted yesterday the unofficial figures did not show the full picture. While multichannels cover 24 hours, ITV figures cover a shorter period of the day. "If you look at the figures from 9.30am, we have 22.3 per cent while multichannels have 22 per cent. And if you look at peak time [7pm and 10.30pm] over the Christmas week, the most important in terms of advertising, we had double their share at 31 per cent, compared to multichannels at 15 per cent.

"At the end of the day it is quite a significant rise for them, and television is becoming more competitive. We are losing out slightly because people have more choice and it is chipping away at our shares. "

A BBC spokeswoman said she would not comment on the trend until after the release of the official figures, but said the year's most popular programme was on BBC1 on Christmas Day – the Only Fools and Horses special, which was watched by 16.3 million people.

Insiders at the terrestrial stations added that some of their own channels such as ITV2 and BBC4 were included in the multichannel figures, while a number of the pay TV companies were losing their share as the audience fragmented between an increasing number of companies.

How well the stations have fared over the holiday period will not become clear until the full figures are released later this month.

So far in 2002, viewing in homes with satellite, cable and digital terrestrial television has risen by 2.4 to 22 per cent. Channel 4 and BBC2 saw small increases, and Five went up from 5.7 to 6.3 per cent.

While the Barb end-of-year figures have yet to be compiled, BBC1 viewing has apparently dropped by 0.7 per cent to 26.2 and ITV1 has fallen from 26.9 to 24.2 per cent. Granada and Carlton, which jointly control ITV1, have pledged to halt the decline by completing a £2.7bn merger while the BBC has invested in multichannel television with services such as News 24 and BBC3.