Virgin Media customers spent more than 41 minutes a day longer in front of their TV screens during the early stages of lockdown.
Data released by the cablenet shows this represents a 10% increase in total viewership.
On demand programming and streaming apps consumption increased by nearly a third, while news channels saw the largest increase in viewership during early lockdown with customers watching twice as much news.
Saturday 28 March was the busiest day for customers tuning in to TV channels and apps with 17% and 42% growth respectively compared to the eight previous Saturdays. BBC One’s charity entertainment show The Big Night In was the most viewed event over the lockdown months.
With the majority of schools closed, viewers spent 5 hours more on average during April watching pay-TV kids channels such as Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network compared to February. Overall, pay-TV kids channels saw a 19% increase in viewing time during early lockdown with Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig and Fireman Sam proving popular with younger viewers.
Virgin customers also explored on demand TV and streaming apps, spending 29% more time watching video apps in early lockdown than the pre-lockdown period, with Netflix experiencing a 32% increase in app usage time via the Virgin TV platform during early lockdown.
The YouTube app was also accessed by 16% more users and overall viewing time increased by 37%.
When the Bundlesliga returned in May, Dortmund’s fixture against Bayern Munich on Tuesday 26 May was watched by 111% more customers than their previous league fixture on Saturday 11 November.
Manchester City vs Arsenal, which was the second live match of the Premier League’s return on 17 June, saw a 47% increase in viewership compared to the respective matches televised in March 2019 and 2018.
In the first week that the Premier League resumed, the sports genre experienced its highest viewership figures in 14 weeks.
