It has been reported that the audience for free to air TV in Australia is shrinking. This year so far, the overall audience is down about 1% which is not much but considering this year we have seen four new free to air digital channels launched and that the population of the country has grown by 2%, the figure should be a concern for the free to air networks.
Meanwhile, the subscription TV sector has seen growth that continues year by year. Nothing sums it up better than this graph which shows the audience shares of the three commercial networks compared to subscription TV (STV). The graph clearly shows the increase of STV over Seven, Nine and Ten. It also clearly shows the demise of Nine’s strangle hold over Australian TV audiences and the rise of Seven in the past four year.
What this all means is that the advertising dollar for the commercial free to air networks is shrinking. Then factor in that now there are twice as many channels to spread their ads over as there was in previous years. Any wonder the networks are struggling and why the roll out of new channels has been slow.
Another consideration is the fact that what qualifies a show as being a flop or a hit has to be redefined. With so much more competition now in extra digital channels, subscription TV also increasing in the channels and services it offers as well as other entertainment media, no longer can we expect to see Australia’s top shows rate as high as they used to.
Where in the past a million might have been considered the bench mark for minimum performance of a prime time show on a free to air commercial channel, now it should be more like 750,000. And with digital channel shares increasing - now getting close to 10% of the total audience, the networks will need to come up with new ways to keep viewers watching and satisfying the demands of advertisers.
Source: Graph: www.mcn.com.au. Some info: www.mumbrella.com.au
