Live TV Viewing Still Dominant in the U.K.

LONDON: Time-shifted viewing accounted for just 10 percent of the U.K.’s TV consumption in the first half of 2012, meaning that 90 percent of linear television watching was of live, scheduled channels.

According to the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB), commercial TV viewing during the first half of the year, from January till June, grew by a minute a day, to an average of 2 hours and 36 minutes a day per viewer. This represented 67 percent of all linear TV watching in the country. Figures show that 94 percent of Britons are watching commercial linear TV at least once a week, and 99 percent are in a month. More than half (51 percent) of households own digital recorders, with average time-shifting representing 15.9 percent of total viewing. This is up from last year’s 14.7 percent.

The average viewer watched 4 hours and 1 minute of linear TV a day during the period. This is 2 minutes per day less than the record level, showing that linear TV viewing is now stabilizing around the 4 hours a day mark.

Drama, including soaps, accounted for the largest share of viewing, with 25 percent. Entertainment followed with 21 percent and films and documentaries were just behind with 17 percent and 15 percent, respectively. Sports, kids, news and music content comprised the rest, in decreasing order.

Lindsey Clay, Thinkbox’s managing director, said: “As predicted, there are signs linear viewing levels will stabilize around the 4 hour mark after the sustained period of record growth. We’d be surprised if there was further growth in total linear viewing as hopefully the economy will improve and we’ll leave the house more—plus more people now have on-demand fully integrated on their TV sets and the stimulus of digital switchover is drawing to a close. However, our preference for watching TV live will remain and overall we’re likely to be watching more TV as a result.”