Ofcom’s latest annual report on the BBC shows that increasing use of BBC iPlayer is now propping up overall BBC television viewing, as traditional broadcast audiences continue their long-term decline.
Publishing its eighth annual report on the BBC – which also doubles as the second Periodic Review of the corporation’s Charter performance – Ofcom says the BBC remains widely used and broadly appreciated, with 83% of UK adults using at least one BBC service each week in 2024/25 and 60% expressing overall satisfaction.
The regulator draws heavily on fresh Barb and Media Nations data to underline the shifting balance between linear channels and broadcaster video-on-demand. In 2024, time spent viewing BBC iPlayer increased enough to deliver a slight rise in total BBC video viewing, while linear viewing of BBC channels held broadly steady.
Broadcaster VOD has now overtaken recorded playback of live channels across the market, with UK audiences watching an average 25 minutes of BVOD per day in 2024, compared with 23 minutes for recordings.
For the BBC specifically, 22% of viewing to its television content is now via BBC iPlayer – up from 14% in 2022 – and the shift is far more pronounced among younger viewers: half of all BBC viewing by 16–24s now takes place on iPlayer, the highest BVOD share of any UK broadcaster.
Despite this, linear still dominates for many demographics and genres. Ofcom notes that broadcast television and BVOD combined remain the majority of in-home video, with broadcaster content accounting for 56% of all viewing in 2024. The BBC is still the single most-watched service overall, responsible for 19% of total in-home video viewing across all platforms, ahead of YouTube and other broadcasters.
National and regional news, films, soaps and specialist factual show the smallest migration to on-demand, indicating a continued preference for linear delivery in these
On product strategy, Ofcom highlights the BBC’s plans to use artificial intelligence within iPlayer to sharpen personalisation and recommendations, positioning the service more firmly as a digital-first hub rather than a pure catch-up player.
The corporation is already experimenting with streaming-first and box-set release patterns designed to drive audiences to iPlayer, while major sports events on BBC One and BBC Two continue to anchor live linear viewing.
Alongside usage and distribution, Ofcom devotes significant space to news and trust. It says the BBC has remained the UK’s most-used news source during the Charter period, with May 2025 research showing 70% of regular BBC TV news viewers rate it highly for accuracy and 68% for trust.
But it also points to a “significant crisis” in editorial decision-making in news and current affairs, and warns the Board and Executive to act more quickly and transparently when failures occur.
Looking ahead to Charter renewal, Ofcom argues that the regulatory framework should be updated to give the BBC more flexibility to deliver across “traditional linear services and online”, while still holding it robustly to account.
It wants the corporation to deepen engagement with less-satisfied audiences, particularly lower-income groups, continue to innovate and take risks – including on third-party platforms – and build on its Across the UK strategy and media-literacy work.
