The BBC is haemorrhaging millennial TV viewers

LONDON - The BBC happily confirmed last week that "Planet Earth 2" is attracting more young viewers than ITV's Simon Cowell singing contest "The X Factor." But the bigger picture is not as positive.

Official television ratings data passed to Business Insider shows that the BBC's millennial audience - those aged between 16 and 34 years old - has nosedived since the British broadcaster moved youth channel BBC3 online in February.

The number of young people watching the BBC's television channels dropped by 7% on last year. BBC1, BBC2, BBC4 had a 22.05% share of 16 to 34-year-old viewers in the 11 months to 30 November, compared to 23.6% over the same period in 2016. It was the biggest drop in millennial viewers of any of the UK's major broadcasters.

The fall came despite BBC1 and BBC2 making small gains in young viewers on the back of big sporting events, including the Olympics and European Championship. It underlines the size of the hole left by BBC3 since it was closed as a TV channel in February.

A BBC spokesman said: "We are proud of the service we offer young audiences across our portfolio. BBC1 is the most popular TV channel in the UK with 16-34s and the only channel to reach more than half of this group every week.

"BBC3 is no longer a TV channel but a youth brand on TV, online and social media, so it should be no surprise it's not consumed like a traditional TV channel."

Haemorrhaging young viewers is problematic for the BBC because millennials are the next generation of licence fee payers. If fewer young people are prepared to pay the £145.50 ($185) annual charge, then the funding mechanism will become harder to sustain in the future.

This was one of the reasons why the BBC was so keen to extend the licence fee to catch-up viewing on BBC iPlayer in September. Young viewers increasingly engage with BBC programming online and it is where all of BBC3's content is available. They now have to pay the licence fee to access this content.

The BBC's loss was other broadcasters' gain, however. ITV enjoyed a 5.5% boost in young viewers, from 18.7% in 2015 to 19.7% this year. Much of this was driven by ITV's youth channel ITV2, which acquired "Family Guy" and had a big hit in the shape of reality dating format "Love Island."

Viacom's portfolio of channels, including Channel 5 and MTV, also benefited. The broadcaster's millennial audience rocketed by 8% to 11.4% in 2016. Channel 5 broadcasts shows including "Big Brother," and Fox acquisition "The X Files" was the highest-rated drama in its history, with more than five million viewers.

Channel 4's share of young viewers was broadly flat at 15.6%, while Sky and UKTV both suffered declines of 6% and 4% respectively, according to the data seen by Business Insider.