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January 07, 2011
TV viewing has reached an all-time high in 2010 in France, with multichannel reaching almost a third of total viewing at the expense of national channels.
According to audience measurement specialist Médiamétrie, individuals above the age of 4 have watched an average 3h32 of television in 2010 (212 minutes). This is seven minutes (+3.4%) more than in 2009 and comes after a decade that showed moderate growth: viewing stood at 200 minutes in 2000 and 180 minutes in the early 1990s. The 2010 World Cup audience was not the only driver, as viewing was up across all demographic targets. Even the much sought-after 15-34 group was up (2h38, up three minutes), whilst children were flat.
The aggregate audience share of digital multichannel reached almost a third of total audience (31.9%, up 4.0 pts) whilst national channels were down to 68.1% (down 4.0 pts). TF1 remains the clear audience leader among incumbents but lost another 1.6 share point (-6%), to 24.5%. M6 was more resilient to digital fragmentation, losing only 0.4 pt to 10.4%.
Within multichannel, free-to-air digital channels, whose audience is boosted by the growing penetration of DTT, are making nearly 20% of total viewing (19.7%, up 4.5 pts, and 20.8% in December alone) at the expense of basic and premium cabsat channels (12.2%, down 0.5 pt). The top digital channels remain TMC (TF1, 3.3%), W9 (M6, 3.0%) and Gulli (FTV/Lagardere, 2.2%). Direct8 (Bolloré) comes fourth (2.0%) and BFM TV is the news leader (0.9%).
For national channels, the general increase in TV viewing (+3.4%) was not enough to offset the loss in audience share (-6%). As a result, and despite an increase in the minutes of spots in 2010, the volume of impacts or GRPs delivered was down 4% according to the advertisers association UDA. The decent revenue growth of 2010 for TF1, M6 and France Televisions was rather due to inflation of cost per GRP or CPTs.
In terms of programme genres, the highest rating of the year was achieved by a World Cup game on TF1 (15.1m viewers or 26% of the population 4+). The highest rating for a movie was 'Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis', a French comedy on TF1 (14.4m viewers). The most successful entertainment programme in terms of audience gathered 11.6m viewers on TF1 ('Les Enfoirés'). On M6, the highest rating was also achieved by a football game followed by US show NCIS with a best rating at 6.9m viewers, or 12% of the audience. France is one of the few markets in Western Europe where local drama series lag far behind US imports. The only big success story for national serial products is the soap 'Plus belle la vie' (regularly above 9% and topping 10.6%, 6.1m).
2011 could see further growth in total viewing, despite the absence of a major sports event, for several reasons. First France still lags somewhat behind most other Western and Southern Europe countries in terms of TV consumption; secondly the continued growth of multichannel viewing and DVR usage is bound to keep boosting overall viewing as it did elsewhere (digital channel viewing and time-shift viewing are often incremental); and finally time-shifted viewing will start to be measured in 2011 and this alone should add three minutes to average viewing figures (see our separate analyst commentary on this).
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