Forget saving money, the UK consumer still chooses their TV offer based on premium sports, according to new research from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.
Data for the 3 months ending 30 September, shows Sky, BT and Virgin Media all gaining a share in overall market sales on the last quarter thanks to their strong sports offer, at the expense of TalkTalk – a considerably cheaper option.
Imran Choudhary, consumer insight director at Kantar Worldpanel, comments: “BT has been heavily promoting its newly acquired UEFA European Champions League football content and as a result has seen its market share grow by over 3.8 percentage points compared with the three months before. In fact, over a quarter of those customers who joined BT in the last three months cited its sports package as the reason for doing so – higher than any other provider. Meanwhile, Sky has grown share by 3.2 percentage points to 30.2% thanks to its premier league football content and value-driven Broadband Unlimited package, which offers 12 months free broadband.”
Offering both BT Sports and Sky Sports through its platform, Virgin Media’s market share has grown by over 1.8 percentage points in the past quarter. Alongside its popular sports packages, all three of the major players have also increased either the length or strength of their broadband discounts in the last quarter.
While TalkTalk launched its £11-per-month sports boost earlier this August, the lack of BT Sports as part of this has hampered its share growth in the run up to the new football season, and its overall share is down by 4.7 percentage points on last quarter.
