16-24s watch seven times less broadcast TV than those aged 65+, who still enjoy it for a third of their waking day, a new study form Ofcom has found.
The regulator says the ‘generation gap’ in media habits has reached an all-time high.
People aged 16-24 spend less than an hour (53 minutes) in front of broadcast TV in an average day – a fall of two-thirds in the last ten years.
In contrast, those aged 65 and over still spend around a third of their waking day enjoying broadcast TV, sitting down for almost six hours (5 hours and 50 minutes) daily. This is slightly higher than a decade ago.
Around a fifth of homes (5.2 million) subscribe to all three of the most popular platforms – Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ – at a cost of around £300 a year.
However, as was reported earlier by BARB, the rising cost of living has led to the number subscribing to at least one streaming service to fall by more than 350,000, to 19.2 million.
“After years of strong growth, the number of homes using streaming services began to slow in 2021, before starting to decline in spring of this year,” said Ian Macrae, Ofcom’s Director of Market Intelligence. “However, cancellations do not necessarily represent customers that have been lost for good. Ofcom’s survey of subscribers who cancelled earlier this year found that almost three quarters (73%) of customers said they thought they would resubscribe – reflecting the flexibility that allows customers to pick up and drop subscriptions depending on changes in programmes, needs or circumstances.”
Public service broadcasters have been placing more emphasis on their own on demand services. 82% of people told Ofcom they used a PSB on-demand service in the past six months, roughly the same proportion who said they used at least one streaming service (83%). Six in ten (59%) viewers said they used these platforms to watch channels or programmes live at the time they are broadcast.
