Discovery leads Asia's PAX pack

Discovery Channel is strengthening its lead over CNN and all the other pan-regional TV channels as the clear favourite among Asia's elite, according to the latest results of the rolling quarterly PAX survey from Synovate. Senior business people and big-spending consumers have consistently rated Discovery the most-watched of the international channels, but the gap is getting wider. Across all 11 markets covered by the survey for the TV portion, 21.9 per cent of people said they had watched Discovery in the past week, compared to 21.1 per cent in the same period a year ago. CNN, in second place, was watched by 14.6 per cent, down from 16.1 per cent. The survey period covers the fourth quarter of last year up to the third quarter of this year (Q4 2003 to Q3 2004). Discovery off-shoot Discovery Travel & Adventure has shown particularly strong growth -- watched by five per cent of the sample in the past week, compared to 1.7 per cent a year ago, largely as a result of expanded distribution -- showing that splitting off this niche channel seems not to have hurt the original brand. The growth comes despite relatively poor viewing figures for Discovery in Tokyo, where viewership is at 5.5 per cent (up from 3.2 per cent), dragging down the channel's rating across all 11 markets. Among top management, Discovery again leads CNN with 19.7 per cent viewership in the past seven days, up from 17.6, compared to CNN (18 per cent, down from 19.2 per cent). CNN was not the only news channel to take a hit; BBC World viewing across 11 markets slipped from 8.6 per cent to 7.9 per cent, although it grew among top management in those markets, from 8.8 per cent to 9.4 per cent. CNBC viewership dipped from 5.9 per cent to 5.4 per cent among all respondents, and also fell among top management, from 8.1 per cent to 7.7 per cent. Bloomberg's fortunes were mixed -- viewing rose among the sought-after top management group, from 1.6 per cent to 2.3 per cent, but went down over the entire survey, from 1.9 per cent to 1.6 per cent. Synovate media director Steve Garton says the ups and downs of the news channels are not in themselves significant -- yet. If decreases on the same scale were to show up for another year, they would be. Discovery rival National Geographic, meanwhile, saw viewership drop slightly -- from 15.6 per cent to 15.3 per cent across the whole sample -- a decline Garton again says is not statistically significant. Music television remained fairly popular; MTV was watched by 12.4 per cent of the sample (up from 12.3 per cent), and Channel V and Channel V International together attracted 4.9 per cent compared to 5.6 per cent in the previous year. MTV performed better among top management, with past seven days viewing of 8.5 per cent up from 7.8 per cent, and the two Channel V options together reaching 4.1 per cent, up from 3.6 per cent. Among print publications, the daily papers appear to be the biggest winners in the current survey, showing reasonably strong growth at a time when readership for other titles is still slightly wobbly. The Financial Times has finally slipped past the Asian Wall Street Journal to claim the title as most widely read pan-regional daily in the survey, with readership rising from 0.4 per cent to one per cent, compared to the Journal's 0.9 per cent (up from 0.6 per cent), and the International Herald Tribune (up to 0.6 per cent from 0.2 per cent). USA Today is not far behind, at 0.5 per cent. Among top management, the FT also leads the Journal, read by 2.9 per cent of respondents, compared to 2.5 per cent. Growth across all the dailies is thought by Synovate to be mainly the result of a change between this survey and last year's in the way the question about readership is asked, making the current results a more accurate reflection of readership. Rankings for the weeklies for the last time include the Far Eastern Economic Review, published by Dow Jones, which has decreased its frequency and will not be included in the questionnaire from now on. Winning the group once again is Time, read by 6.1 per cent of those interviewed, up from 5.8 per cent, followed by Newsweek (4.3 per cent, down from five per cent), BusinessWeek (2.3 per cent down, from 2.8 per cent) and The Economist (1.8 per cent, down from 1.9 per cent). Forbes looked to be gaining ground against rival bi-monthly Fortune; Forbes readership across the sample grew from 0.6 per cent to 0.9 per cent, while Fortune's went from 1.8 per cent to 1.7 per cent. Both grew in popularity among top management, but Forbes' growth was stronger -- up from 1.4 per cent to 1.9 per cent -- though still significantly behind Fortune on 3.9 per cent. Garton says the stability of all the media results is encouraging news for media owners. "The consistency in the data shows we're not seeing them being eroded particularly by internet alternatives yet." While the region's biggest earners might not be reading or spending more time watching television, they're spending more when they shop -- updating their gadgets and splashing out on hi-tech entertainment equipment. Ownership of computers has shot up, especially of laptops, which are now carried by 27 per cent of people surveyed, compared to 23 per cent a year ago. Thirty-eight per cent now have a mobile phone with access to the internet (up from 31 per cent), and MP3 player ownership has gone from 23 per cent to almost 30 per cent in a year. "Last year wasn't very good because of Sars," says Garton. "Now we're seeing improvements virtually across the board." Digital still camera ownership has jumped from 36 per cent to 45 per cent, and 58 per cent now have a DVD player compared to 45 per cent a year ago, not just because of greater consumer confidence but lower prices. Having splashed out on gadgets last year, fewer people said they would be doing the same in the coming year -- signalling that many are buying these items for the first time, rather than replacing or updating them. With more money in their pockets -- average monthly household income for respondents rose from US$4,912 to $5,210 over the year between surveys ---consumers are looking to splash out a little on themselves. About seven per cent said they intended to buy a luxury watch worth US$500 or more in the coming 12 months, and 11 per cent said they'd be shopping for quality leathergoods or designer fashion accessories. The PAX survey samples just over 19,000 people in Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Taipei, Jakarta, Manila, India, Seoul, Sydney and Tokyo.