Enders Analysis: Forecasting New Lows for U.K. Broadcasters

Enders Analysis has revised its forecasts to a new low for U.K. broadcasters’ viewing audiences: falling to just half of all video viewing in 2027, down from 63 percent.

Whereas Enders’ reports usually refer to the viewing habits of people living in TV households as defined by BARB (around 95 percent of the U.K.), this report refers to the entire U.K. population aged 4-plus.

The report lays out Enders’ latest projections for video viewing in the U.K. until 2027—the end of the BBC’s current charter—encapsulating the consumption of video content across the population aged 4 percent. It has reassessed how far and how quickly the transition between broadcasters and online platforms will go “due to the acute declines in linear TV set audiences since April 2021, when the most stringent pandemic-related restrictions were eased in the U.K.” Non-TV devices—computers, tablets and smartphones—only add a very small amount to broadcasters’ consumption; Enders estimates, for example, less than 10 percent among 16 to 34s and less than 3 percent across the population.

The research shows that today’s 16 to 24s spend just a fifth of their video time with broadcasters’ traditional programming, versus over 90 percent for over-65s.

Enders predicts that under-35s will spend less than a fifth of their video time with broadcasters’ traditional programming five years from now, with 16 to 24s being the lowest at 12 percent, versus a third for 35 to 44s, half for 45 to 54s, two-thirds for 55 to 64s, and 85 percent for over-65s.

The difficulty with attempting to construct a complete picture of people’s video viewing habits, Enders said, is the lack of comprehensive audience measurement. BARB’s data suggest that 98 percent of total broadcast viewing is on a TV set, with 87 percent for Netflix and around a quarter for YouTube. Meanwhile, it finds that 94 percent of time spent on TikTok is via smartphones.

Enders put together its own model for people’s video viewing habits, based on various industry sources, encapsulating both long-form and short-form content. The “other online video” category consists of online platforms, which are primarily ad-funded and not owned or operated by traditional broadcasters, although viewing for broadcasters’ channels/accounts on these platforms is included here. YouTube is a category of its own, given its sheer size. The model excludes social video, online adult content and cinema viewing. Video games are also excluded.