Eurosport maintains most-watched European channel status

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 30-Jan-08, 11:00

LONDON - Eurosport has again topped the list of most-watched pan-European TV channels, though it and second-placed MTV's weekly reach fell, according to the EMS 2007 Winter Survey.

The EMS survey is produced by Synovate and records international media consumption among the 39m highest income earners in Western Europe, who are the wealthiest 13% of the population. The EMS Select survey covers only the top 3%.

Eurosport's weekly reach in the 2007 survey was 31.2% compared with 32.4% in the 2006 survey.

MTV recorded a 2007 weekly reach of 26.6% compared with 28.3% in the 2006 survey.

In third place was French/German public service culture channel Arte, which grew its weekly reach to 25% from 24.7% in 2006.

The Discovery Channel was fourth with 19%, up from 18.4%, and Euronews and CNN tied on 17.6%.

BBC World grew its weekly share to 12% from 11.8%. The BBC also said that the number of viewers watching no other international news channel reached 1.1m, up 6% year on year while across Europe, BBC websites attract 6.5m affluent adults each month, more than any competitor.

Outside the UK, the BBC is one of only three international media sites with more than 3m visitors a month.

Jeremy Nye, head of Audience Insights, BBC Global News, said: "We are optimistic that investments in the BBC news websites and BBC World will see audiences migrating between BBC World and the BBC's digital news more easily, boosting audiences to both."

However, CNN was the top-rated news channel in the EMS Select survey with a weekly reach of 24.4%, down from 25.7%.

This put it in third place, after second-placed MTV on 27.8%, down from 28.6%.

Eurosport also topped the EMS Select table with 34.2%, down from 35.2%.

Laurent-Eric Le Lay, chairman of Eurosport Group, said: "We are delighted the EMS Survey results continue to confirm our undisputed leadership position across Europe."

The full list of countries included in the EMS survey is Austria, Belgium/Luxembourg, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

The separate CEMS survey covers Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic and will include Russia from June 2008.