News channels stake rival claims to top spot

Leading international news channels have each placed their individual spin on the results of the latest IPSOS European Media and Marketing Survey (EMS), a key annual fixture in the battle to attract advertisers to the channels.

Sky News said the results showed it was the most-watched news channel each day by up-market Europeans and that it had achieved the highest weekly reach of all the news and business channels across the international channels measured. The BSkyB-owned channel said it reaches 5.8% of the EMS audience, comprising the “top 13%” of affluent European in 21 countries, with CNN its closest competitor at 3.5%, followed by Euronews at 3.4% and BBC World News at 2.7%.

Sky News achieved a weekly reach of 16.3%, up 3.5% on last year, with Euronews reaching 12.7% and BBC World News 11.3%. In the “super-elite” sub-group of the top 3% of Europeans, the channel said it was the top news and business channel with a daily reach of 8.7%

Euronews meanwhile also claimed top spot, citing the EMS daily reach figure, which showed its reach at 3.6% of affluent people. Euronews said it led in daily reach in eight countries – Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and, for the first time, Poland.

Euronews also highlighted the success of its digital platforms, pointing out that 16% of Euronews’ total monthly reach comes exclusively from digital platforms, either by websites or the apps, and that a further 11% of reach comes from consumers who use at least two of our platforms – TV plus the web, TV plus an app, or the web plus an app.

CNN, for its part, claimed that the EMS confirmed its status as Europe’s biggest international news brand with number one spot for cross-platform monthly reach. The broadcaster said the survey showed it reached 40% of upscale Europeans every month, ahead of Sky News with 31%, BBC World with 29%, Euronews with 28%, CNBC with 14% and Bloomberg with 12%.

CNN said it reached 54% of “C-suite” executives and 55% of business decision makers every month, ahead of its rivals including niche business channels Bloomberg and CNBC.

CNN also said the survey showed it reached more exclusive viewers – defined as those who used CNN and didn’t use a directly compared news channel in the last month – than its rivals with 20% exclusive viewers against BBC World’s 9% and 22% exclusive against Sky News’ 14%.

The BBC’s commercial arm meanwhile pointed out that the number of affluent European watching BBC World News and using BBC.com has increased year-on-year by 5%, in contrast with other channels that saw numbers decline.

The BBC also said its news offering across all platforms had increased its monthly reach by 2%, and cited separate research by ComScore that showed BBC.com attracting 16.9 million unique users a month across continental Europe, making it the largest international news site on the continent.