On average, young adults and teens spend more time on TikTok than they do watching TV, survey reveals
22nd September 2022 12:52 - Media and PR

The study by Ofcom polled UK citizens to find correlations and disparities between social media and TV screen time.
When looking at which age group spends the most time watching TV, the poll found that those aged 65 and over spend just under six hour a day watching TV; around a third of their waking day. On the other hand, the amount of time that 16-24-year-olds spend in front of the TV has decreased by two-thirds over the last 10 years.
The cost-of-living crisis has impacted everyone differently, with the television industry being no exception. The number of people subscribing to at least one streaming service dropped by over 350,000 this year alone.
Around one in five homes in the UK are subscribed to Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+, costing around £300 per annum, found the research.
In addition, a separate Ofcom study found that 73% of those who unsubscribed from a streaming service earlier this year said they expect to re-subscribe; showing the flexibility that consumers have when choosing their streaming services.
The study also looked at how people chose to watch national events, such as the Queen’s Jubilee and the 2022 Women’s Euros Final; with roughly 10 million people watching the events live on broadcast television.
On the other hand, almost six in 10 participants said they used either a Public Service Broadcaster’s on-demand service to watch shows live. This means an average increase of three minutes per day spent watching BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub and All4.
Ian Macrae, Director or Market Intelligence at Ofcom, said: "Traditional broadcasters face tough competition from online streaming platforms, which they’re partly meeting through the popularity of their own on-demand player apps, while broadcast television is still the place to go for big events that bring the nation together."
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