2 Television

2.1 The year in Television

2.1.1 UK television industry key metrics, 2002 - 2006

Note: Viewing per head includes individuals 4 years and older

2.1.2 Gap widens between subscription and advertising revenue

The TV industry’s revenue dynamics in 2006 were driven (as in 2005) by the migration of analogue television homes to digital platforms. This had an impact on the relative size of subscription revenue compared to revenue generated by advertising and also on the division of advertising revenue among operators.

Subscriptions first exceeded TV advertising revenue in 2003. Over 2006 subscriptions grew by 3.5% (£138m) to £4,029m, while net advertising revenue (NAR) fell 2.2% (£80m) to £3,469m – subscription revenue is now 16% higher than NAR (9.7% in 2005). However, with the majority of new digital homes choosing free digital terrestrial TV, the rate of growth in subscriber revenues is falling, down from 8.5% a year ago.

Figure 2.1 Subscription and net advertising revenue
£m

Source: Ofcom/Broadcasters

The pattern of advertising revenue distribution changed markedly in 2006, reflecting the intensifying competition faced by the five main terrestrial networks for audiences. These five channels lost 5% of share in each of 2005 and 2006, which is the highest fall since 2002. This translated into a 9% reduction in their advertising revenue, down to £2,426m; 78% of the reduction was accounted for by ITV Plc’s 12.4% (£181m) fall in NAR from £1,462m in 2005 to £1,281m in 2006.

The beneficiaries were the multichannels, which collectively broke the £1bn advertising revenue barrier in 2006, rising 21% (£179m) over the year. However, this was not enough to offset the losses among the public service broadcasters (PSBs), resulting in an overall £79m reduction in television NAR.

Figure 2.2 Net advertising revenue by sector
£m

Source: Ofcom/Broadcasters

2.1.3 DTV penetration reaches 80%

Over eight in ten homes (80.5%) could receive digital television channels on their main set by the close of Q1 2007 and multichannel penetration (including analogue cable) reached 81.7% (Figure 2.3).

Figure 2.3 Multichannel penetration in the UK
Homes (m)

Source: Ofcom, Broadcasters, sales data

The primary driver of growth was Freeview. Two million homes joined the platform in the twelve months to Q1 2007, taking total Freeview homes to nearly 8.4 million, up 31% year-on-year. This meant that the proportion of homes with Freeview on their main set (33%) exceeded the proportion with a pay satellite set-top box (31.6%) for the first time.

The platform’s growing popularity may be explained by the expanding range of channels it offers and the growing sophistication of Freeview devices. For example:

• In 2006 CITV and Film4 joined the platform while Teachers TV moved to a two-hour daily daytime slot. IPC and Turner Broadcasting are planning to launch Nuts TV as a brand extension of the men’s magazine in Q4 2007;
• Virgin Radio was made available nationwide via Freeview, while Heart FM was launched in a number of English regions; and
• The first interactive advertisement – for T-Mobile – ran in mid-2006. These advertisements have been available on Sky for some years, but the limited amount of bandwidth on Freeview has previously hindered their development on the platform.

In late 2006 the Freeview decoder received a boost as six manufacturers announced that they would produce Freeview Playback branded digital video recorder (DVR) set top boxes, benefiting from the brand in return for supporting an agreed functional specification.

DVRs also exerted an influence over the DTT pay-tv proposition in 2006 as Top Up TV relaunched in Q4 as Anytime offering a (mostly) DVR-enabled programme download service rather than live channels. (Three day-part channels – Eurosport, UKTV Style and UKTV Gold – remained at the time of writing). Alongside programmes from a range of multichannel providers, PictureBox also joined the Anytime line-up, giving customers access to a range of films from Universal Studios.

The growing attractiveness of DTT to pay television operators was underlined by Setanta Sports joining the platform in early 2007. It now offers a sports channel on the DTT platform for a £9.99 monthly fee, having won two out of the six packages of rights to broadcast FA Premier League games.

BSkyB has also demonstrated its interest in pay services over the platform, announcing in February 2007 a joint plan with National Grid Wireless to launch a pay-DTT subscription service. BSkyB’s proposal would involve substituting three pay-tv channels for the free-to-view services currently available on the platform - Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky 3. Ofcom is presently reviewing the proposal and intends to issue a consultation in autumn. A Statement is likely to be issued thereafter in the beginning of 2008.

DTT’s success as a free-to-view digital platform appears to have sparked interest from the BBC and ITV in offering a free satellite service, which they first announced in 2005. (BSkyB already offers free-to-view access to a range of channels through its Freesat service, in return for a one-off fee of £150 for installation and equipment). The BBC Trust recently gave its consent to launch the service, and the BBC currently proposes to have the platform up and running in 2008.

2.1.4 PSBs launch time-shifted channels to off-set parent channel losses

The 2006 Communications Market highlighted the success that four of the five terrestrial channels were having in offsetting parent channel share losses with new channel launches. The BBC launched the first PSB spin-off in 1997, while ITV followed a year later with ITV2. In 2006 launches included CITV and ITV Play from ITV in March 2006, Film4 from Channel 4 in June and Five Life and Five US in October. For Five, the launch of its spin-off channels was timely, as, for the first time, the parent channel experienced a reduction in all homes’ audience share, down 0.7 percentage points in the year to 5.7%.

Figure 2.4 PSB spin-off channel launches in 2006/07

*Originally subscription-only services

As prominent in 2006 as these new spin-off launches was the introduction by public service broadcasters of time-shifted versions of established channels. Channel 4 led the PSBs’ way in 2002 and 2005 with E4+1 and More4+1. But in 2006, ITV2 and ITV3 time-shifts were introduced, while Five announced the autumn launch of time-shifted versions of its spin-offs. Channel 4 has become the first PSB to decide to timeshift its parent channel, from August 2007.

Figure 2.5 illustrates the share contributed by time-shifted channels compared to non-time-shifted versions. It suggests that the impact varies substantially by genre; 12 months after its launch Film4+1 was attracting 40% of the audience share achieved by Film4, while More4+1 stabilised at around 10% after a similar period. The ITV time-shifts were still in growth phases at the time of writing, contributing around 10% and 5% respectively to the share of their non-time-shifted counterparts.

Figure 2.5 The share contribution of time-shifted channels
Proportion of non time-shifted share (%)

Source: BARB

2.1.5 Premium rate telephony in broadcasting

The rise and fall of quiz TV

Participation television, as characterised by channels such as Quiz Call and ITV Play, and by long-form programming carried on general entertainment channels, found increasing popularity with UK viewers in 2006. This genre of programming invites viewers to call using premium rated telephone services (PRS) to answer puzzles. When added to mainstream phone-in PRS quizzes, operator data submitted to Ofcom suggest that revenue from interactive services (including phone-ins and use of the red button) reached £123m in 2006, up 18% on 2005.

But 2006 also saw an increasing volume of complaints about quiz TV and mounting interest from regulators and MPs. Concerns focused on the fairness of contests and the cost of making calls to the channels.

A series of regulatory measures and intense scrutiny of the sector led to a steep decline in the number of channels and hours of programming dedicated to quiz TV. By summer 2007 no self-standing quiz TV channels remained and the numbers of programmes and transmission hours had dropped massively. In March 2007 there were nearly 1,000 hours per week of quiz programming; by July that had fallen to around 90 hours.

Mainstream use of PRS: matters of trust

From February 2007 serious allegations about the conduct of PRS-based games and votes from mainstream programming began to appear in the news media. Particularly grave were accusations of fakery and shoddy practice in viewer prize competitions.

In addition to the particular investigations, Ofcom announced in March 2007 the commission of an inquiry into television broadcasters’ use of premium rate services, led by Richard Ayre, a member of Ofcom’s Content Board and formerly Controller of Editorial Policy at the BBC. The inquiry sought to establish whether systemic causes of compliance failure were present in broadcasters’ use of PRS. Its remit included PRS use in mainstream programming and quiz TV.

Richard Ayre concluded that systemic problems were apparent. He made various recommendations, including that broadcasters’ licences should be changed to contain conditions making them directly and widely accountable for their use of PRS and to implement suitable systems of audit. Ofcom subsequently issued a consultation that included these measures.

The fallout from the series of events that led to the inquiry, and continued throughout it, served to raise the importance of its recommendations further still.

The reaction from regulators and the broadcasters themselves has been extensive:

• Ofcom imposed a £50,000 fine on the BBC for fakery in Blue Peter;
• Five received a £300,000 fine from Ofcom for incidents on its Brainteaser programme;
• ICSTIS fined Eckoh, the PRS service provider for Channel 4’s Richard & Judy ‘You Say, We Pay’ competition, £150,000 for breaches of its code of practice;
• In July 2007, the BBC announced the results of a wider audit of programmes broadcast since the beginning of 2005, highlighting six instances where the conduct of staff in the management of phone-in quizzes had been called into question. It has now announced the creation of an editorial standards board along with mandatory ‘ethics’ training to try to prevent similar incidents in the future; it is also considering the revision of its disciplinary code relating to editorial standards. The Corporation has suspended all competitions pending further inquiries;
• Five pulled its quiz programme Brainteaser;
• Channel 4 announced that it would drop PRS competitions and price other PRS applications at cost recovery only;
• ITV initially suspended all interactive services and contests on its channels for auditing by Deloitte, and closed the ITV Play channel. ITV also ordered a review of its interactive services dating back two years; and
• Several broadcasters have announced plans to reimburse callers to unfair contests and, in addition, GMTV is organising a series of free draws for entrants who received unfair treatment.

2.1.6 High-definition subscribers claim to watch more TV

Telewest (now Virgin Media) launched its high-definition (HD) television service in December 2005, offering viewers greater picture resolution than standard television services and Dolby 5.1 sound. Four months later, BSkyB launched its own HD service to coincide with the 2006 World Cup, while around the same time the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five together launched an HD trial on the DTT platform in London.

To date, HD services have attracted nearly 450,000 subscribers, of which two-thirds take BSkyB’s service while Virgin Media accounts for the remainder. Their service features, along with the DTT trial, are illustrated in Figure 2.6.

Figure 2.6 Comparison of high-definition services, 2007

In 2007 Ofcom commissioned research among 400 HD subscribers to understand the impact of the service on television viewing behaviour. Forty-three per cent claimed that their TV consumption had increased since taking HD; of those, a third (36%) said they watched six or more additional hours a week (Figure 2.7).

As evidence of HDTV’s substitutional potential, 77% of respondents reported watching non-HD channels less since adopting the service. The less-watched channels were often the ones that were also offered in HD format. Viewers therefore stayed committed to certain channels, yet shifted to HD versions when these were available. Respondents also reported that HD viewing constituted roughly one-third of their total viewing time.

Figure 2.7 HDTV’s impact on television viewing hours
Since subscribing to HD TV, do you find that you personally watch more or less TV?
Main reason, %

Source: Ofcom Note: Based on 400 respondents; ‘Don’t knows’ are excluded from the chart and table.

The introduction of HD channels may also have had an impact on the programme genres which viewers choose to watch. Forty-three percent claimed to watch more Film and 39% more Sport since getting HDTV, which could be explained by the wider availability of HD content in these genres when compared to others.

It is important to note that the increase in viewing time might not be entirely attributed to HD. For instance, it might be related to viewers purchasing HD-ready sets with larger screens, which may influence them to watch more TV. Furthermore, HDTV is still a new service so viewing patterns may be the subject of a novelty effect and not indication of long-term behavioural changes.

2.1.7 Time-shifted viewing increases as DVR popularity grows

DVRs grew in popularity through 2006. Latest Ofcom research suggests that 15% of people had access to Sky+, V+ or a Freeview DVR. Most notably, Sky+ subscriptions grew steadily from 400,000 in Q2 2004 to 1.4 million in Q1 2006, before jumping 800,000 to 2.2 million in Q1 2007 (Figure 2.8).

Figure 2.8 Sky+ subscribers
Homes (m)

Source: BSkyB

Sky+ saw its influence extend beyond the living room as BSkyB launched its mobile Remote Record service, allowing subscribers to set Sky+ to record programmes using a programme navigator accessed through a mobile handset. In February 2007 this was followed with an online service offering similar functionality through the Sky.com website. In March 2007 the company launched Anytime on TV for its Sky HD and Sky+ subscribers. This service automatically stores a selection of the week’s programmes on the Sky+ DVR for later viewing on-demand.

The number of DVR-owning households - in particular Sky+ users - has now reached a level where meaningful research can be conducted into the impact of the devices on viewing habits.

Figure 2.9 shows that, according to BARB figures, approximately 15% of all viewing in Sky+ homes in the 12 months to March 2007 was time-shifted, rising to 18.7% in peak. Approximately 47% of time-shifted viewing took place on the same day as the original broadcast. There were demographic differences, with women watching marginally more time-shifted programming than men (1% more across the day, rising to 2% in peak) and 35-54 year olds time-shifting more than any other age group.

Figure 2.9 Time-shifted viewing in Sky+ homes March 2006 to March 2007

Source: BARB

2.1.8 Ethnic channel licences awarded grew by 20% over 2006

Ofcom awarded 126 television licences in 2006 –109 for services broadcast in the UK and 17 for overseas audiences. This was down from the record 168 licences awarded in 2005 (Figure 2.10). (Note that an issued licence does not necessarily equate to a service launch. Some channels are subject to delays and others never get off the ground).

Figure 2.10 Licences issued by Ofcom and the ITC
Number of licences issued

Note: For years with purple bars, no distinction is made between UK licences and overseas licences.
Source: Ofcom

Entertainment and Ethnic channels dominated the new awards. Entertainment accounted for 33 of the new licences, down from 48 licences awarded in 2005, while Ethnic channels made up a further 31, up from 12. There was also an increase in the number of Factual licences from ten in 2005 to 18 in 2006 (Figure 2.11).

Figure 2.11 UK television licences awarded by genre, 2006
Breakdown of licences
(Total licences: 109)

Source: Ofcom

2.1.9 Platform operator update

BSkyB

For the year to 30 June 2007, BSkyB reported £3,406m in retail subscription revenue, up 8% from the previous year, and £352m in advertising revenue, up 3%. The company experienced a 7% reduction in wholesale channel revenue to £208m, as a result of removing its basic channels from the Virgin Media platform (see below) and because of a reduction in cable subscribers’ take-up of premium-rate channels.

By the end of June 2007 there were almost 8.6 million Sky subscribers, of which nearly 2.4 million took Sky+, 292,000 paid-for high-definition channels and 1.3 million subscribed to the Multiroom service.

In November 2006, the company acquired a 17.9% stake in ITV Plc for £940m, a move which was ultimately referred to the Competition Commission in May 2007, following submissions by Ofcom and the OFT to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry relating to public interest and competition concerns.

February 2007 saw BSkyB and National Grid Wireless announce a plan to launch a pay-DTT subscription service. Sky proposes to remove Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky 3 from Freeview and replace them with subscription channels. Ofcom intends to consult on the proposal in the autumn and a statement is likely to be issued in early 2008.

In March, Sky removed its basic tier channels from Virgin Media’s cable platform after their carriage agreement expired and the parties failed to strike a new deal. The withdrawn channels include Sky One, Sky Two, Sky News, Sky Sports News, Sky Travel and Sky Travel Extra. Sky’s film and premium sports channels were not affected. Later in June, Sky signed a deal with Tiscali to carry its basic channels. These are in addition to Sky’s movie and sports channels which are already available through the IPTV service.

In May 2007 the company joined Second Life to become the first 24-hour news channel to exist in the virtual world. Second Life is a 3-D virtual world built and operated by its eight million users. Sky’s presence includes a replica of the Sky News studio. It allows users to sit in the presenter’s chair, read the autocue, operate the control room and leave with a virtual TV set that offers news clips and more. In July 2007 the company announced a plan to make content available from Sky’s channels for download to Sony’s Playstation Portable.

Virgin Media

NTL and Telewest merged in 2005 and acquired Virgin Mobile in 2006 to become the UK’s first quad-play operator, offering mobile, fixed voice, broadband and television services. The company rebranded as Virgin Media in February 2007.The business also includes UKTV and the business formerly known as Flextech.

In Q1 2007 Virgin Media’s cable revenue stood at £637.3m, down 1% from Q4 2006. Group revenue (including mobile and broadband) was £1,021.9m, down 5.8% over the period. Gross customer additions were 184,300 in Q1, down from 213,500 in the previous quarter.

As part of its rebranded proposition, Virgin Media launched the V+ box, based on Telewest’s DVR TVDrive. It currently offers one HD channel from the BBC along with an 80-hour DVR and 2000+ hours of on-demand content, including HD programming.

In February 2007 Virgin Media launched Virgin Central, a channel providing on-demand content to its customers. The channel accompanies Virgin’s selection of over 500 on-demand films for £2.00 - £3.50 (HD movies are up to £4.50) and more than 1,000 hours of music videos (£0.20 per video) and concerts (£1.50). Its VOD service is used by 43% of its subscribers. Virgin also offers Free Catch Up TV, which stores subscribers’ pick of the previous week’s programming for seven days. All on-demand content offers pause, fast-forward and rewind features.

By April 2007 the organisation had launched a branded Freeview box to reach customers without access to the cable network. The set-top box is free to Virgin customers who subscribe to its £19.99-a-month broadband and phone package.

In August 2007 the company announced plans to carry footage from Coca-Cola Football League matches on Virgin’s broadband and mobile services. The content will be available for two seasons and will offer on-demand highlights of the games for a week after transmission. Virgin also announced that it will launch a new channel, Virgin 1, in autumn 2007, and has agreed to carry Setanta’s new sports news channel.

Freeview

Homes with Freeview connected to the main television set grew by 2 million between Q1 2006 and Q1 2007, taking the total number of Freeview homes to 8.4 million. With its growth rate outstripping that of satellite and cable, the platform has become the most popular choice for multichannel television on the main set, exceeding the number of Sky subscriptions for the first time in Q1 2007.

In June 2007 the Freeview group launched a branded digital TV recorder in conjunction with six set-top box manufacturers under the Freeview Playback brand. The devices can store roughly 80 hours of content, receive all Freeview channels, have live pause and rewind functionality, a TV guide and some have twin tuners allowing viewers to watch one channel while recording another.

2006/07 also saw the five main broadcasters develop their channel line-up on the platform:

• Five UK and Five Life launched in October 2006;
• CITV, ITV’s first dedicated children’s channel, launched in March 2006;
• ITV Play launched as a fully-fledged channel in March 2006 but was taken off air in March 2007, and replaced by ITV2+1; and
• Film4 went free-to-air in July 2006, and a time-shifted version was introduced on to the platform at the same time.

Top Up TV

Top Up TV launched in March 2004, offering Freeview customers access to 19 additional channels on a subscription basis. Since September 2006 the number of live channels has decreased gradually as Top Up TV prepared for the launch of its new DVR download service, Top Up TV Anytime, in December 2006.

The transformation of Top Up TV to a mainly download service is now complete. It offers viewers three pay-TV channels (UKTV Gold (4pm – 1am), Eurosport UK (7:30am – 10am) and UKTV Style (1pm – 4pm), and access to over 140 hours per week of on-demand content from the following channels: Animal Planet, Discovery Lifestyle, Nickelodeon, Paramount Comedy, MTV, Boomerang, Living, UKTV Gold, Eurosport UK, TCM, UKTV Style, Bloomberg, Cartoon Network, CN Too, Disney Channel, UKTV Food, Discovery Factual, Hallmark channel and Life and Times. The film service PictureBox is also available through Anytime, offering seven downloadable films from Universal Studios each week. Finally, since March 2007, sports channel Setanta Sports also became available through Top Up, offering a range of live sports programming, including Barclays Premiership football matches.

2.1.10 Broadcaster update

The BBC

The BBC received licence fee revenue of £3,243m in 2006/07, up 4.6% (£142m) from the previous year. BBC Worldwide delivered additional commercial revenue of £810m (up 8%) while BBC Resources generated £126m (down 2%).

On 1 January 2007 the new Royal Charter replaced the Board of Governors with the BBC Trust, supporting a model of governance designed to put greater distance between the Corporation’s regulator and its executive body. The Trust’s primary role is to set the BBC’s overall strategic direction and to oversee the work of the Executive Board. It is responsible for issuing licences which define the budget and scope of the BBC’s services, and for commissioning Public Value Tests when new services are introduced or there are significant changes to existing services.

The Corporation has launched a number of new services over the past 18 months:

• the BBC iPlayer launched in July 2007; it allows viewers in the UK to watch BBC programming over the internet up to a week after transmission;
• the Corporation began conducting a free trial of the high-definition channel, BBC HD, in June 2006 in partnership with ITV, Channel 4 and Five; and
• the BBC and ITV announced plans to launch a free-to-view satellite TV service in spring 2008, which will offer the Freeview channels, an EPG, interactive TV and will support HDTV and PVRs.

The level of the licence fee was settled in January 2007 by the then Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport, Tessa Jowell, who announced a rise from £131.50 to £135.50 on 1 April 2007, reaching £151.50 in 2012.

The broadcaster has since gone on to make a firm commitment to move five London-based departments to Salford Quays by 2011. These include BBC Children’s (CBBC and CBeebies), BBC Children’s Learning, the BBC Research and Development aspect of BBC Future Media and Technology, BBC Radio Five Live and BBC Sport. The BBC reported that the move is expected to create up to 10,000 jobs and add £170m to the regional economy.

ITV Plc

ITV Plc’s total reported revenue was £2,181m in the twelve months to December 2006, down 0.7% or £15m from 2005 (ITV plc Financial Results 2006). The loss was largely attributed to a decline in net advertising revenue (NAR) at the flagship channel, ITV1, down £181m (12%) to £1,281m over the period. Other revenue was actually up 23% from the previous year, driven by NAR gains at ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, ITV News (now off air), CITV and Men and Motors, up 41% (£46m) to £157m. Sponsorship was up 29% to £53m and media sales/other income rose 6% to £118m.

Spend on ITV1 programming rose by £1m from 2005 to £902m in 2006, whereas combined spend on ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, ITV News, CITV and Men and Motors increased 23% to £75m.

Through 2006 and 2007 ITV rescheduled its Children’s output. After the launch of the children’s channel, CITV, in March 2006, Children’s programming hours reduced on ITV1 on weekdays and moved to a weekend slot. ITV also launched the interactive channel, ITV Play, in March 2006, and followed with new time-shifted channels ITV2+1 and ITV3+1 in October 2006.

ITV has recently been extending the delivery of its established services to new media platforms. In May 2007 the company revamped its website to introduce live streams of its channels, and a range of new services including a 30-day catch-up facility, an archive of selected programming, made-for-broadband content, user-generated content and broadband games.

SMG in Scotland is in separate ownership from ITV but transmits ITV network programmes. It operates under two licences which cover Central and Northern Scotland. In May 2006 Grampian TV and Scottish TV were re-branded as STV North and STV Central respectively. STV's news services, Scotland Today and North Tonight are tailored to the individual regions and also feature local news opt-outs.

UTV is the arm of ITV that covers Northern Ireland. Like SMG, is operates across a range of markets, including TV, radio and new media. There was a proposed merger between UTV and SMG, however, in February 2007 UTV announced that its discussions had been “terminated”.

Channel 4

Over 2006 Channel 4’s group revenue rose by over 4% to £937m. Advertising and sponsorship grew by 2% - driven by the digital channels More4, E4 and Film4. This compensated for a reduction in revenue on the main channel, down 5.3% to £696m.

The Corporation continued to bolster its channel portfolio by taking Film4 free-to-air in July 2006. In September 2006 it followed with the launch of the mobile television channel Shortcuts.

The broadcaster announced the launch of Channel 4+1 in August 2007 on Freeview, Sky and Virgin Media to accompany its other +1 time-shifted channels, Film4+1, E4+1 and More4+1. It has acquired the Live TV channels, which will allow it to establish six consecutive channels on Sky’s electronic programme guide (EPG). Life TV broadcasts on channels 135-138, alongside More4, E4 and E4+1. The deal could offer Channel 4 valuable space on the EPG, potentially to launch new channels or reshuffle existing ones without the need to buy additional slots from Sky.

The Corporation’s move into radio received two boosts in 2007. Ofcom awarded the second national DAB multiplex licence to the consortium which it led; the service plans to launch by July 2008. The group also recently took a 50% stake in Emap’s digital-only radio station portfolio, which includes Smash Hits and Heat radio.

Five

RTL, Five’s parent company, reported 2006 revenue for the channel of £315m, down 2.8% from 2005.

In October 2006 Five launched the spin-off channels Five Life and Five US. It plans to add time-shifted versions of these channels on satellite in Autumn 2007. Five Life broadcasts between 6am and 11pm and is targeted toward a female audience. Its programming includes shows such as The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Angela’s Eyes, Footballers’ Wives and Bad Girls. Five US broadcasts from 12pm to 1am and concentrates on foreign imports from the US. Key programmes include CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Dirt, Happy Days and Joey.

Five also launched its video-on-demand service, Five Download, in October 2006. It enables viewers to download, on a pay-per-view basis, a selection of shows to view on a computer for up to 14 days after transmission.

BSkyB

For the year ended 31 March 2007, BSkyB reported wholesale channel revenue of £216m and advertising revenue of £343m.

In 2006, BSkyB was successful in bidding for four of the six FA Premier League football rights packages (Setanta won the remaining two), paying £1,314m to broadcast 92 games per season through to 2010. The company was also successful in a joint bid with BT for the near-live rights to FA Premier League football, in a three-year deal which allows BSkyB to offer full delayed coverage or extended highlights of 242 games per season from the Barclays Premiership.

BSkyB announced plans for a DTT subscription service this year. The company proposes to replace its existing Freeview channels, Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky 3, with three new channels offering a range of sport, entertainment, movies and news content. Ofcom will consult on the proposal in autumn and aims to release a Statement in early 2008.

Setanta Sports

Setana offers 12 channels in 24 countries with live coverage of sports such as football, golf, horse racing and rugby. Setanta channels can be accessed via Sky (for £9.99/mth), Virgin Media (£9.99/mth), online via Setanta.TV (£7.99/mth), and on Freeview with a card slot set-top box (£9.99/mth, single channel).

In 2006 the company announced the roll-out of pay-per-view Scottish Premier League matches across the UK on DTT. In the same year it won exclusive rights to broadcast the US PGA tour in the UK and two of the six FA Premier League packages. From August 2007 the three-year deal allows the company to broadcast 46 football matches per season, while BSkyB broadcasts 92.