Eurosport confirms its strong position as the outright leader of pan-European TV channels, following the newly released TGI Europa 2000 Survey. The results also revealed a number of key findings about Eurosport’s viewers and how they use new technologies.

This second annual TGI Europa 2000 survey reinforces Eurosport’s position as the most watched channel across Europe for every reference period (day, week, month and year).

1.The power of sport still brings Europeans together around their TV sets, even as audiences fragment in the key economies of France, Germany, Spain and the UK.
Eurosport reaches 24% – an estimated 45 million individuals (47% of individuals in cable and satellite homes) – in the four countries. Eurosport is ahead of all channels mentioned in this report: MTV (19%), Euronews (10%), CNN (8%), Discovery (7%) and CNBC (3%).

Increasing distribution and a change in methodology meant that Eurosport and most TV channels showed significant increases in reach compared to ’99 TGI Europa study. Eurosport remains, as in ’99, leader by a clear 5% points.

2. TGI Europa 2000 also reveals that some European viewers only watch Eurosport. The findings show that every week, almost one third (29%) of Pan-European channel viewers are exclusive to Eurosport. According to the study, around 3 million Europeans can not be reached by any other pan-European TV channel in an average week.

3. 2001 will see increased channel choice and growing penetration of digital TV. Eurosport viewers welcome digital TV and increased channel choice.
Eurosport viewers are leading the way with 43% saying they like the idea of digital TV (index 125 vs all Europeans*) and 43% (index 132*) saying they look forward to more channels.
These results are very promising for both Eurosport – which is also the pan-European TV channel with the greatest digital distribution on 18 digital platforms across Europe – and Eurosportnews, the brand new sports news channel, exclusively transmitted via digital.

4. As the telecommunications and internet sectors look to consolidate the progress made in recent years, it will be important for them to nurture existing clients as well as find new ones. Eurosport viewers are heavier Internet and mobile phone users compared to the average European: 18% of them (index 127*) claim they are using Internet either at home or at work, with 6% (index 165*) claiming they use it every day. These figures also show the great synergies that Eurosport, at the cutting edge of pan-European Television, is developing with its internet portal www.eurosport.com.

TGI Europa 2000 is the leading provider of single source media and marketing surveys measuring product and media consumption across Europe. Sample size 55,616 adults 15+, representing 191,525,000 individuals. The fieldwork was conducted May-Sept 2000 in France, April 99 – March 2000 in the UK and April – July 2000 in Germany and Spain.

For further information, please contact:
Susanah Murphy
Tel: +33.140.93.81.42
Fax: +33.140.93.83.50
smurphy@eurosport.co.uk