It's the PAX globally for Global channels in Asia

Sitaram Sundalia - Televisionpoint.com
A bumper year for international news in 2005 has led to a surge in viewership of pan-regional television by Asia's most coveted consumers, wealthy and influential business leaders. The latest results from the rolling quarterly PAX survey, conducted by Synovate, shows that the major international news channels posted strong gains in weekly viewing across the entire survey sample, which covers affluent consumers and business managers. But the strongest growth came from viewers who work in senior the whole survey and 14.4 per cent management roles, who not only (up from 9. 4 per cent) among top tuned in more regularly to chan- management. nels like CNN and BBC World.

CNN remained the top international news channel in the survey, with past seven days' viewing growing from 14. 6 per cent to 18. 9 per cent among the total sample, and from 18 per cent to 27.4 per cent among top management. Second-placed BBC World overtook several of the entertainment channels with viewership of 10.6 per cent (up from 7.9 per cent) across tional news events such as the Asia tsunami, the earthquake in Pakistan, hurricane Katrina in the US, the death of Pope John Paul II and the appointment of his successor, concerns about outbreaks of avian flu, and a steady stream of significant economic news events.

"It's been a big news year," says BBC World head of research and planning Jeremy Nye. "We saw a big spike in viewership during July from the Olympics 2012 decision when the world descended on Singapore, followed in quick succession by the London bombings, G8 and Live 8. These are all massive, quintessentially international news stories, some short-term, and some which continue today."

CNN, which has revamped its Japanese service, CNNJ, in recent months, performed especially well in Tokyo, almost doubling its audience there, and BBC World has benefited from its successful 'Putting news first' marketing campaign.

"PAX-qualified adults in Asia genuinely love and trust the Nye. . . 24-hour news channels trusted 24-news channels, we serve a very special purpose, and more are discovering us each quarter, ' says Nye. Among business news channels, Bloomberg Television more than doubled its audience among top management, from 2. 3 to 4. 9 per cent, and CNBC went up from 7.7 to 9.8 per cent. Synovate Asia-Pacific media director Steve Garton says increased distribution among the pan-regional networks in Asia accounts for much of the growth in viewing among the non-news channels. There's a rising tide for everybody, and there's no question that once people start to subscribe to cable, they move away from terrestrial TV; that's a fact. This is not the last time we'll see increases in cable viewership. It's a very healthy industry with many years of growth still to come," he says.

In print, the FinancialTimes was one of the best performers, with its year-old dedicated Asian edition continuing to pull away from rival Wall Street Journal Asia. The FT's average issue readership among top management grew from 2. 9 to four per cent, while the Journal's rose from 2. 5 to 3. 4 per cent. The Journal relaunched with a new, smaller format towards the end of the current survey period, though, so it is the next round of results that will show how readers are responding to that. The next quarter's results will also show how the closure of BusinessWeek's Asian print edition is affecting readership of titles such as Newsweek and Time. Business-Week announced in December that its European and Asian print editions would be replaced by special online editions. BusinessWeek readership in the PAX survey rose from 2. 3 to 2. 6 per cent in the latest set of results;Time was steady on 6. 1 per cent, and Newsweek slipped to four per cent.