The continued decline of traditional TV viewing by younger generations was verified with this year's research by Ofcom, who discovered that just 48% of young people tuned in to watch live TV each week in 2023, a massive drop off from 76% in 2018.
People aged between 16 and 24 were found to watch just 20 minutes of television each week, while those aged between 25 and 34 watch television for only 35 minutes in the average week.
It won't come as any surprise that the media regulator’s research found that most young people prefer to watch video-sharing platforms such as YouTube and TikTok instead, with as many as 93% of those aged 16 to 24 watch a video streaming platform in the average week, while 63% of those aged between 25 and 34 also opt for TikTok and YouTube and suchlike over traditional TV viewing.
Those in the 16 to 24 age group reported watching one hour and 33 minutes of content on video-sharing platforms, while those in the 25 to 34 age group reported watching an hour and three minutes of shared content each week.
There has also been a large increase in those viewing broadcasters’ on-demand services such as ITVX and BBC iPlayer, which rose 29% between 2022 and 2023. Netflix remains the most popular streaming service, viewers spending an average of 21 minutes a week on the platform. Streaming services overall saw a marginal rise in viewers, up 6% between 2022 and 2023.
The trend toward moving away from linear television viewing is slowly taking favour in older generations, despite being slower to both take up new tech, have less awareness of new platforms or less likely to change from their viewing patterns. Middle-aged viewers, aged between 45 and 54, showed viewing rates in the age group falling from 89% to 84% in a just a year. As could be expected, traditional television remains popular among oldest audiences, with those aged 65 and above watching more than four hours of television every week.
But despite figures showing that traditional viewing is falling, people in the UK watched more TV and video content at home in 2023 than in the previous year, averaging four hours and 31 minutes a day. There has been a number of popular Live national and international events that peaked the tables of the most popular TV broadcasts, with the Euro 2024 final between England and Spain attracting a massive 15.1 million viewers across the BBC and ITV. It would be interesting to see how the stats of traditional TV viewing this past year would fare without these hugely popular live events.
Remarking about the report figures, Ian Macrae, Ofcom’s director of market intelligence said: “Gen Z and Alpha are used to swiping and streaming, not flipping through broadcast TV channels. They crave the flexibility, immediacy and choice that on-demand services offer, spending over three hours a day watching video, but only 20 minutes of live TV. It’s no surprise that the traditional TV is fast becoming a device of choice to watch YouTube. But while live TV may not have the universal pull it once did, its role in capturing those big moments that bring the nation together remains vital.”
Read the full Ofcom report here
Photo by Amateur Hub