DTG Staff | 15.08.2011
The amount of time spent watching linear commercial TV channels in the UK during January to June 2011 increased to a new record for the period, TV marketing body Thinkbox has announced.
The average TV viewer in the UK watched 18 hours, 9 minutes of commercial linear TV a week (2 hours, 35 minutes a day) during the first six months of 2011, according to new figures from the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB). This is an increase of 48 minutes a week (7 minutes a day) on the same period in 2010, and an increase of 1 hour, 47 minutes a week (15 minutes a day) on the five-year average for the period.
The latest BARB figures show that commercial TV accounted for 64% of viewing during the first six months of the year, up from 62% in the same period last year.
Total TV viewing (including BBC channels) increased slightly during the first six months of the year. The average person watched a total of 28 hours, 21 minutes a week (4 hours, 3 minutes a day) of linear TV. This is an increase of 6 minutes a week (51 seconds a day) on the same period in 2010.
According to Thinkbox,the continued strength of linear TV has been fuelled by a number of factors that have created a 'drive to live' for TV viewing. These include: sharing TV 'live' via a second screen, increased risk of 'spoilers' via social media making live viewing imperative; new TV technologies such as digital recorders and HDTV which 'magnetise' viewers to the TV and on-demand TV encouraging more linear TV viewing.
Non-live, 'time-shifted' viewing accounted for 9% of the UK's TV consumption during January to June 2011. This has increased from 7.1% in the same period in 2010, according to BARB.
In households that own digital television recorders (47% of households), average timeshifting represented 14.7% of total viewing. This figure has increased from 13.7% in the same period last year.
Lindsey Clay, Thinkbox's Managing Director: "We've been saying for a while that linear TV viewing couldn't keep breaking records forever and that it had to stabilise at some point. It appears that this is now happeningalthough, within this, commercial TV is still growing a little, which is great news for advertisers and a testament to the choice and quality it offers. On-demand TV is expanding total TV by adding to this stable linear base."
The new figures will be published in Thinkbox's Half Year Review.
