It’s been fashionable in recent years for media commentators to argue TV is dead as an advertising medium, while at the other extreme, people state categorically that spending on social media is a waste of money. Extreme positions make for attractive headlines, but of course there’s a time and a place for TV, social media and everything in between, so long as you look at the facts and understand how each channel works.
This webinar from the Royal Television Society is a good source for up to date data on TV viewing - including some fascinating insights into lockdown viewer behaviour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzuyIU0vc5I&t=2481s
It’s an hour long, but if you can’t fit another hour of screen time in between Normal People and Gogglebox, here’s a summary…
People still watch a huge amount of TV every day.
The average daily time spent in front of the TV set during lockdown (all viewers aged 4+) was 307 minutes - over five hours every day. (Source: BARB)
It’s also useful to look at the comparative figure for the same period from 2019, when we weren’t locked down. It’s still a whopping 231 minutes. More than 3.5 hours every day during ‘normal’ times. Perhaps it’s not surprising then, that when digital platform Adzooma asked 2,000 adults which type of marketing makes them most likely to buy something, 56% said TV.
A lot of people working in marketing and advertising don’t spend anything like this amount of time watching TV, and it’s this variance between personal experience and average UK behaviour that leaves so many people susceptible to the argument that ‘TV advertising is dead’.
The rise in unidentified viewing continues
It’s important to understand that quite a lot of viewing is going to ‘unidentified viewing’ and that this is increasing year on year. Unidentified viewing is when BARB know that the television set is on, but it’s not showing a BARB reported channel. Examples of unidentified viewing include YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, using games consoles and around half of all BBC iPlayer usage.
Of the 307 minutes of average daily viewing during lockdown, 93 minutes is unidentified viewing. That’s quite a lot, and it’s rising fast - but it still leaves over three and a half hours of what we might call traditional telly watching.
16-34s seem to value public service broadcasters just as much as older generations
There’s been a narrative emerging that young people, hooked on a diet of Netflix and Instagram, don’t value public service broadcasting.
In fact, Digital UK’s research into public attitudes to broadcasting suggest there’s little difference between the views of 16-34s and the rest of the population.
The Corona crisis even may have helped switch younger audiences back on to public service broadcasters – Channel 4 doubled its 16-34 audience for Channel 4 news during the crisis and the BBC saw record numbers across all audiences.
Having said that, Netflix is also seen as a really important source of information for younger groups and is neck and neck with the BBC amongst 16-34s in terms of perceived importance.
Lockdown has been a bumper time for TV viewing figures across the board
The BBC has served one billion (BILLION!) iPlayer requests during lockdown. To begin with, this was driven by news, but as lockdown went on, people switched to drama, particularly Killing Eve and Normal People.
Channel 4 has seen the best numbers ever for hits such as Gogglebox and Celebrity Bake-Off and record breaking numbers for a new comedy series with the latest run of Friday Night Dinner.