For the first time, less than half of 16-24-year-olds are now watching broadcast TV in an average week, according to Ofcom’s annual study into the UK’s media habits.
The Media Nations 2024 report says that 48% of young audiences tuned in during an average week last year, down from 76% in 2018. Children aged 4-15 are tuning out at a similar rate, with only 55% watching broadcast TV each week in 2023, compared to 81% in 2018. Overall, the weekly reach of traditional TV fell by a record amount in the last year.
The decline in weekly reach among middle-aged viewers (45-54s) also accelerated, falling from 89% to 84% in a single year. In contrast, there has been relatively little change among loyal older audiences aged 65+, with around 95% continuing to tune in to broadcast TV each week.
Younger audiences aged 16-24 aren’t just watching broadcast TV less frequently, they’re also watching for shorter periods at only 33 minutes each day – down 16% year on year. Of this, only 20 minutes is spent watching live TV.
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In comparison, they’re spending three times as long each day - 1 hour 33 minutes - watching video-sharing platforms such as TikTok and YouTube.
Overall, people in the UK watched more TV and video content at home in 2023, averaging 4 hours and 31 minutes a day, up 2% since 2022. This was primarily driven by an increase in daily viewing of video-sharing platforms and broadcasters’ video-on-demand services, such as iPlayer and ITVX.
The Media Report found that the TV set remains at the heart of household viewing, accounting for 84% of TV and video content watched at home in 2023. TV screens are also becoming more popular for watching YouTube content. Thirty-four per cent of time spent watching YouTube at home is now on a TV set.
Daily viewing of subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) services saw more marginal growth in 2023 (up 6% to 38 minutes). Netflix remains the most popular service – watched for an average of 21 minutes per person per day, and accounting for more than half of all SVoD viewing.
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