At MIP TV Eurodata TV delivered the main trends of the previous worldwide TV season for the 6th year in succession in its report :"1998, One Television Year in the World". This yearly overview was presented to the market during the traditional conference in Cannes. Guest speakers from the U.S. market (Brian Lane from Neilson Media Research), the German market (Thomas Sudholt from IP Deutschland) and Spanish market (Miguel Angel Fontan from Taylor Nelson Sofres AM) presented the latest developments regarding the cable and satellite TV in their own country.
Across 47 TV markets and 1.1 billion viewers, "1998, One Television Year in the World" analyses the viewers TV consumption, the position and share that the main broadcasters hold when faced with the new TV offers, and the viewers favourite TV programmes. Ecuador, Israel, Lebanon, Panama, Romania, and Ukraine are included for the first time this year. For most countries, Eurodata TV archives allow the study of evolution since 1993.
Among the main facts of the year, two countries now consume more TV on average each day than the United States: they are Japan and Mexico. People in these countries now consume more TV for 4 hours per day on average. Overall, TV consumption increased in three out of four countries among the ones followed since last year. These raises are clerly marked especially in Europe where one main event, the Soccer World Cup pushed up audience levels.
Audiences of leading channels tend to resist when faced with new offers of mainly cable and satellite channels, but lead channels lose ground anyway. Among the 20 channels that in 1997 controlled more than one third of the audience in their country, two thirds saw their market share decrease. This does not prevent some leading channels monopolising all the top programs ranking when it is about gathering the largest number of people. Channel 2 in the Philippines, Globo in Brazil, Inter in Ukraine, ORT in Russia, RTE 1 in Ireland, SIC in Portugal, SF! In German-speaking Switzerland, TSI in Italian speaking Swutzerland, Televisa 2 in Mexico, TF1 in France, TSR1 in French-speaking Switzerland, TVB in Hong Kong, TVR1 in Romania, Venevision in Venezuela, all won all the 10 best rated programs of the year. In Asia, leading channels even strengthen their position: in Singapore, Channel 8 with already a market share of 52.2% in 1997 reaches 59.0% in 1998, ABS-CBN climed from 43.3% to 48.0% in Philippines, TV3 from 39.3 to 44.0% in Malaysia, MBC from 27.0 to 31.0% in South Korea.
State-owned channels carried out a good year particularly in countries where they held the broadcasting rights to two major sporting events: France Soccer World Cup and Nagano Winter Olympic Games. This was the case in Germany, Belgium, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland....In the Netherlands, NED 2 leaped up 20 points in June thanks to the Soccer World Cup, and finally jumped from a market share of 13.9% in 1997 to 16.2% in 1998. This is the same story fir the Danish state-owned channel DR1 which increases its yearly market share from 27.8 to 29.4% with a pick at 35% in June. Also the German public service statiom ARD, with a market share from 19.9% in June, reaches a 15.4% yearly market share and supplants the commercial television RTL to get the German leadership for the first time in years.
The Soccer World Cup remains the main TV event of 1998 with one of the games ranking in the first position in more than one third of the countries. Soccer remains more than ever the predominant sport even if other sports reached the yearly tops when there is a strong tradition or the presence of an international champion. Thjs is the case for the Commonwealth Games and Australian Football in Sydney and Melbourne, rugby in New Zealand, Formula 1 in Finland or tennis in Chile.
Other programmes remain strong guarantees for big audiences worldwide, even if TV stars have had more difficulties keeping their rank this year. Big news programmes are still gathering a lot of viewers as well as the awards and special events such as the European Song Contest, the Academy Awards, or New Year's Eve special nights. The latest Hollywood movies still attract a lot of viewers in 1998; blockbusters listed within the top of this year include Babe, Beethovan 2, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Forrest Gump, Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire and True Lies. Quality mini-series are especially important this year. The quality of the castings and the volume of the budgets are close to the levels of movie production with mini-series such as Le Comte de Monte Cristo in France, Merlin in the United States or Der Konig Von St Pauli in Germany. Some invincible fictions remain at the top year after year, such as the British Soaps Eastenders, Coronation Street, Heartbeat and Casualty. Derrick in Germany or Seinfeld in the United States are listed in the tops although production stopped in 1998. New comers appear at the side of traditional ones: for example local productions such as NBC new series Jesse in the U.S. or Water Rats in Australia, and also imported programmes such as German series Kommissar Rex in Hungary or the Dutch entertainment Stars in their Eyes in the U.K.
The position of TV stations remain relatively stable in western Europe. Note that some channles make special progress such as Channel 5 in the U.K. or Canvas-Ketnet in Northern Belgium. Elsewhere, big changes can happen, sometimes totally disturbing the local market. The most amazing revolution took place in Hungary: within only some months after its launch at the end of 1997, TV2 reached a leadership position, RTL KLUB took the second rank right after. The result is that these two channels took half of the Hungarian audience. The largest variations are to be found in Latin America, sometimes linked to the success or failure of some telenovelas that, with 200 episodes per year during prime time, can be influence broadcasters market share in a spectacular way. This is the case in Mexico through the fights between TV Azteca and Televisa. In this region of the world, development of cable and satellite strongly influenced the positions of the terrestristrial channels: in Argentina, cable and satellite channels won almost 10 points to reach a 32.6% market share thanks to their movie scheduling. In Venezuela, 'other channels' climbed from 10.9 to 17.1% in market share.
In relation to Ireland Daily Viewing Time per Individual was around the average for Europe at 192 minutes with Hungary at the top with 236 min. and German speaking Switzerland lowest at 132 min. Unsurprisingly RTE was among the channels which controlled more than one third of the audience in their country. The Top programme in Ireland was A Father Ted Tribute on the 01/03/98 with 34% TVR and not the usual Eurovision Song Contest which normally takes that prize. Glenroe has been in the top ten for the last five years. Among the formats successfully adapted to other countries The Lyrics Board which has translated to MTV3 Bumtsibum in Finland was in that countries top 10 as well as another adaptation of the format in top 10 in Sweden. At the end of 1998 Eurodata TV declared that it was too early to analyze ratings of TV3 launched in Ireland in September.
MMM
