Omdia: Linear TV Viewing Dropped Post Lockdowns

Average daily viewing time slipped by 2 minutes in 2021 following the lockdown-driven gains in 2020, with linear TV showing the sharpest declines, according to new research from Omdia.

The Cross-Platform Television Viewing Time Report—2022 indicates that daily viewing time hit 362 minutes in 2021 (6 hours and 2 minutes), a 0.5 percent decline on 2020. Declines in linear TV, online short form and pay-TV VOD account for that decrease, with gains in online long-form and social media video viewing (notably on TikTok).

Long-form online viewing grew by 8 minutes, reaching 68 minutes. Time spent viewing video content on social media platforms increased by 9 minutes in 2021 to an average of 60 minutes per person per day across the nine markets analyzed.

In all nine markets studied in the report, linear TV viewing was down, Omdia reports.

“In highly developed markets such as the U.S. and the U.K., 2021 will likely be the last year where linear TV predominates over nonlinear TV viewing,” said Rob Moyser, a senior analyst in Omdia’s TV and online video team. “On a platform-by-platform level, however, linear TV still remains by some distance the most popular way to watch TV in the markets covered.”