Report: British Consumers Reluctant to Cut Back on TV Spend

LONDON: British consumers would rather scale back on dining out and going to the movies over cutting back on how much they spend for TV services, according to a report from Deloitte and YouGov.

The Deloitte/YouGov research, Television’s Got Talent, was produced on behalf of the Media Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, taking place August 28 to 30. The report asked consumers which entertainment options they would consider cutting before scaling back their TV budget. It found that consumers would prefer minimizing dining out (43 percent) and going to the movies or to the pub (38 percent each). The willingness to scale back on socializing differed by demo; 38 percent of the 18-24 set would consider eating out less before reducing their spend on television, compared with 48 percent of 35-to-44 year-olds.

Consumers also showed an unwillingness to scale back on mobile (19 percent) and broadband (5 percent) spending. Jolyon Barker, the head of Deloitte’s U.K. technology, media & telecommunications practice, said: “Consumers are tightening their belts and it is good news for the television industry that television is the entertainment of choice for the British family. Television, mobiles, books and broadband are the essential items the consumer cannot live without, even when times are tight.”

The report also found that 45 percent of respondents were watching TV for more than an hour a day. The recession, the report says, has prompted consumers to watch more documentaries (19 percent) and news (18 percent), as compared with more reality TV (5 percent) and chat shows (3 percent).

Additional Deloitte/YouGov data, cited in the Financial Times, found that 64 percent of respondents named television as being one of three ad media that had the "most impact", followed by newspapers. "TV was rated nearly three times more impactful than the next form of media," said Howard Davies, a partner at Deloitte, told the FT.