For the first time, less than half of 16-24-year-olds are now watching broadcast TV in an average week, according to Ofcom’s annual study into the nation’s media habits.Just 48% of young audiences tuned in in an average week last year, down from 76% in 2018. Children aged 4-15 are tuning out at a similar rate, with only 55% watching broadcast TV each week in 2023, compared to 81% in 2018. Overall, the weekly reach of traditional TV fell by a record amount in the last year.Younger audiences aged 16-24 aren’t just watching broadcast TV less frequently, they’re also watching for shorter periods at only 33 minutes each day – down 16% year on year. Of this, a mere 20 minutes is spent watching live TV.In comparison, they’re spending three times as long each day (1 hour 33 minutes) watching video-sharing platforms such as TikTok and YouTube.Overall, people in the UK watched more TV and video content at home in 2023, averaging 4 hours and 31 minutes a day (an increase of 6 minutes/2% since 2022). This was primarily driven by an increase in daily viewing to video-sharing platforms (up 12% to 49 minutes) and to broadcasters’ video-on-demand services, such as iPlayer and ITVX (up 29% to 20 minutes).
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