Eighty-six per cent of online adults are watching videos on YouTube with a quarter saying they do so at least once a day.
Ofcom’s latest Online Nation reports the majority of UK internet traffic continues to be video with the latest available figures (2017) showing this to have reached 70%, up from 64% in 2015.
However, while YouTube remains a popular source of short form – and some long form ¬ content there are some significant demographic differences.
For example, overall 19% said they watch videos on Snapchat, but this includes 77% of those aged 16-17, while only 1% of over-64s said they had done so.
The UK subscription video on demand market is the largest in Europe and the forth largest globally, behind the United States, China and Japan.
In 2019, 39% of UK adults who use the internet at home or elsewhere said they had used the internet to watch videos or TV programmes. Many of them, says the report, will be viewing Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Now TV.
But the Top 100 video properties by reach makes for interesting reading, a quarter comprises familiar broadcasters, the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. There are also two sports leagues (Major League Soccer and the NFL), neither of which are associated with being played in the UK, but which do which show a potential future market.
