Key market developments in TV and audio-visual.
Sector overview
The time spent watching broadcast TV continued to decline in 2016, although to a lesser extent than
in previous years, decreasing by four minutes since 2015 to an average of 3 hours 32 minutes a day across all individuals aged 4+.
Within that overall decline, there
is a widening gap between the viewing activities of the youngest and oldest audiences. The steepest decline in average viewing of broadcast TV was among children (4-15) and adults aged 16-24,
while average viewing for over-64s increased slightly. Furthermore, new research from Ofcom found that 66% of teens use YouTube to watch TV programmes/films compared
to 38% of all adults in 2017.
Despite the threat from online services, revenues for the broadcast TV industry increased by 1.0% in real terms to £13.8bn in 2016,
with further revenue of £1.7bn generated by online AV services. Within this, net advertising revenue in the traditional TV sector exceeded £4bn for the second consecutive year. Despite fundamental changes in the advertising market over
the last ten years, the television advertising market has remained very resilient due to its primacy
in providing mass audiences.
Pay-TV platform operators (Sky UK, Virgin Media, BT TV and TalkTalk TV) increased their revenues by 2.8%
in real terms in 2016 to £6.4bn, accounting for 46% of broadcast industry revenue. On-demand
and streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and NOW TV are mainly complementary to
The time spent watching broadcast TV continued to decline in 2016, although to a lesser extent than
in previous years, decreasing by four minutes since 2015 to an average of 3 hours 32 minutes a day across all individuals aged 4+.
Within that overall decline, there
is a widening gap between the viewing activities of the youngest and oldest audiences. The steepest decline in average viewing of broadcast TV was among children (4-15) and adults aged 16-24,
while average viewing for over-64s increased slightly. Furthermore, new research from Ofcom found that 66% of teens use YouTube to watch TV programmes/films compared
to 38% of all adults in 2017.
Despite the threat from online services, revenues for the broadcast TV industry increased by 1.0% in real terms to £13.8bn in 2016,
with further revenue of £1.7bn generated by online AV services. Within this, net advertising revenue in the traditional TV sector exceeded £4bn for the second consecutive year. Despite fundamental changes in the advertising market over
the last ten years, the television advertising market has remained very resilient due to its primacy
in providing mass audiences.
Pay-TV platform operators (Sky UK, Virgin Media, BT TV and TalkTalk TV) increased their revenues by 2.8%
in real terms in 2016 to £6.4bn, accounting for 46% of broadcast industry revenue. On-demand
and streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and NOW TV are mainly complementary to