TV viewers in the U.K. are the most likely among any of their European counterparts or viewers in the U.S. to recommend their pay or free TV channels to friends and family, according to a new study.
In fact, while there’s a strong correlation between the people who watch U.K. free broadcasting and recommend it, the exact opposite happens in the U.S.: national broadcasters like CBS and ABC are well-watched, but don’t rate in the top 20 among channels recommended. Pay channels like HBO, Showtime and Starz do earn recommendations from U.S. viewers, according to the report from Ampere Analysis.
“Our analysis shows a big difference in engagement between new and old TV players,” said Ed Border, principal analyst at Ampere. “What does become clear is that content and brand are key. The strength of brand BBC shines through. Comparing the performance of the BBC with other European public broadcasters shows that despite major groups in France and Germany spending similar sums on programming, there is a stark difference in viewer engagement and average channel ratings.
“The lesson from the U.S. is that the more targeted, lower-audience channels are offering content that is meeting their viewers’ needs. The same is true of the new SVOD services like Netflix where original content strategy, powerful brand and strong positioning help it achieve the highest Net Promoter Score (NPS) among pay channel brands.”
In Europe, it was BBC that scored highest in Ampere’s (NPS) ratings, with ARD and ZDF in Germany and RAI in Italy not too far behind. On the SVOD front, Netflix scored the highest NPS score in the U.S., U.K. and France.
