Europe shows its lack of unity

Despite the move to increased media concentration, there remain few truly global brands in broadcasting. MTV and CNN have moved closest to this goal; NBC and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation are not far behind.

Another aspiring global broadcaster is Discovery Communications Incorporated, parent company of Discovery Channel. DCI has published the results of one of the largest consumer research studies, aimed at better understanding the complexities of the global TV market.

“Citizens of the World, Consumers of the World” is published this week. The survey, conducted by Roper Starch Worldwide, spans 41 countries, detailing the programming tastes and consumer preferences of more than 40,000 people. It identifies a potential worldwide TV audience of 1 billion viewers: 96 per cent of homes in the 41 countries surveyed have at least one TV set – more than those who own a fridge (90 per cent), telephone (84 per cent) or car (46 per cent).

Thirty-five per cent of all homes have access to cable or satellite (the figure is 34 per cent in Western Europe); 49 per cent have a video recorder (63 per cent for Europe) and the world average number of channels received is 12 (again, more than in Western Europe where the average is ten).

DCI’s study shows that UK TV viewing is the second largest in Europe – on average, we spend 3.13 hours viewing each day compared with 3.8 hours in Turkey. Italians have the lowest daily average viewing in Europe – 1.72 hours. The European daily average – 2.7 hours – is below North America’s 2.9 hours and 2.7 hours in Asia and Latin America.

When it comes to programme origin, all European respondents exhibited a significant degree of “national chauvinism”, believing their own, domestic programmes to be the best in the world. Among the British, 79 per cent rated UK programmes as best. In contrast, only ten per cent of European respondents thought British was best: US programmes scored the best response (21.5 per cent).

Even so, when asked what types of programmes they preferred, British respondents were closest to the European average, opting for more “stimulating” programmes and favouring documentaries about the environment and social issues. Throughout Europe, movies were ranked as favourite TV programming; documentaries came second.

When asked to comment on perceptions of a range of products based on their country of origin, Germany was perceived to be best for producing cars; Japan for home electronics, PCs and photographic equipment; the US for cigarettes and jeans, and France for wines. The UK was not perceived to be best at producing anything by its European neighbours.

This along with European consumers’ brand sensitivity – Western Europeans are 17 per cent more likely than the global average to believe one brand is better than another – demonstrates Western Europe is “a far more cohesive market than any other world region”, says Richard Burdett, vice-president of advertising at United Artists Programming, which manages sales and marketing for Discovery Channel Europe.

But it also demonstrates that, while European consumers share much common ground, strong feelings of separatism and xenophobia remain.