Pay TV phase three document - Stakeholders - Ofcom

Pay TV phase three document – non-confidential version
Figure 4 Chart showing varied preferences (consumer research)
Sports
Soap operas
Films
Comedy
Drama
Documentaries
History / geography
News
Nature / animal
Childrens
Reality
Music
5%
7%
6%
6%
4%
7%
9%
6%
7%
Base: All multi-channel TV household decision-makers for whom content is ‘must have’ (FTA 045, pay
TV 947)
Source: Ofcom pay TV research phase one (June / July 2006)
Notes: Spontaneous mentions of programme genre among those for whom content is ‘must have’.
3.21 The three genres that are most valued by consumers are sports, soap operas and
films. Of these, soap operas are widely available on free-to-air television, and so are
unlikely to be a primary driver of pay TV subscriptions. The same is true of other
genres which are valued by consumers, such as comedy, drama and documentaries.
3.22 Sports and films are the genres which stand out as being amongst the most valued
genres by consumers, and also having a high degree of exclusivity to pay TV. On this
basis alone we would expect them to be key drivers of pay TV subscriptions. We
used a variety of evidence in our Second Pay TV Consultation to analyse the
importance of sports and movie content in more detail, and we set this out again
below.
Sums paid for content rights
13%
14%
10%
11%
10%
10%
14%
16%
21%
18%
18%
31%
33%
31%
27%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40%
Free-to-air consumers
Pay TV consumers
3.23 The amounts paid by companies such as Sky and Setanta and similar companies
abroad for exclusive rights to sports and movies content are substantial, pointing to
the importance of these types of content to their businesses, for example:
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