Ofcom – YouTube and Streaming is Slowly Taking Over UK TV Sets
The UK communications and media regulator, Ofcom, has today published its Media Nations 2025 report, which reveals how linear TV viewing continues to decline in favour of broadband-based video streaming platforms (particularly YouTube and Netflix). But broadcast TV currently still accounts for the majority (56%) of in-home viewing (down from 57% last year).
The full report covers a mass of different aspects and figures for national TV, video, radio and audio consumption, but we’ll only focus on a few of the headline details below. For example, individuals (aged 4+) spent on average 4 hours 30 minutes per day watching video content at home in 2024, only one minute less than in 2023.
The humble TV set also remains central to video viewing in the home, with some 84% of in-home video viewing taking place on it. But people also spent 4% less time watching broadcast TV on TV sets than in
2023.
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The BBC was still the most-watched broadcaster/service in 2024 among all individuals, accounting for 19% of all in-home video viewing, which was followed by YouTube and ITV. But among young adults aged 16-34 and children 4-15, YouTube was the most-watched service, accounting for 22% of video viewing for the former and 28% for the latter. Netflix was the next most-watched service for both age groups, accounting for 13% of video viewing.
However, a small proportion of audiences (7%) did not watch any PSB content on TV sets in Q1 2025. They tended to be younger and less likely than the average population to have traditional TV platforms like Freeview (through an aerial), cable or satellite, opting for TV delivered over the internet. They watched significantly less broadcast content and any video in the home overall, mainly viewing YouTube and other VSPs (78% of their total in-home video viewing). SVoD/AVoD viewing took up the next largest proportion of their viewing (17%). Netflix was their most viewed SVoD/AVoD but they watched less of it than the non-PSB viewers group in Q1 2023.
Ed Leighton, Ofcom’s Interim Group Director for Strategy and Research, said:
“Scheduled TV is increasingly alien to younger viewers, with YouTube the first port of call for many when they pick up the TV remote. But we’re also seeing signs that older adults are turning to the platform as part of their daily media diet too.
Public service broadcasters are recognising this shift – moving to meet audiences in the online spaces where they increasingly spend their time. But we need to see even more ambition in this respect to ensure that public service media that audiences value survives long into the future.”
Elsewhere, the proportion of UK households receiving any subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) service in Q1 2025 continues to plateau, and was at the same level as it was (at 68%) in 2021. Some two-thirds of UK households subscribe to at least one of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or Disney+. Netflix remains the most subscribed-to service, present in almost six in ten UK households and it accounted for nearly half of total SVoD viewing in 2024.
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In addition to cultivating direct-to-consumer relationships, SVoD platforms are increasingly leveraging bundling partnerships to broaden their reach. This includes integration with pay-TV operators, such as Sky (Sky Broadband) and Virgin Media offering customers the option to add on SVoD subscriptions, and telecom providers bundling services with mobile or broadband plans, like O2’s inclusion of Disney+ with selected mobile packages.
According to Ofcom’s VoD Survey, 30% of Netflix subscribers now pay for their subscription as part of their household pay-TV service bill, or as part of a bundle with another service. The equivalent figure was nearly as high for Disney+ subscribers (27%), but lower for Amazon Prime Video subscribers (13%). So clearly those telecoms providers that allow you to bundled streaming subscriptions have had an impact.
Finally, it’s worth noting that consumer expenditure on recorded music in the UK continued its steady growth in 2024, rising by 5.7% year-on-year to reach £2.36bn. This reflects the ongoing strength of subscription
streaming, modest gains in physical formats (mainly vinyl LPs), and a continued decline in digital music download revenues.
Not that our readers will care, but Gavin & Stacey, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and Mr Bates vs The Post Office were the most-watched TV programmes/films of 2024. Broadcasters accounted for half of the top ten most-viewed titles in 2024, taking the top three positions. Gavin & Stacey: The Finale was the most-watched programme of the year, averaging 18.6 million viewers across BBC One and BBC iPlayer on TV sets.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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As with previous articles on this topic, it’s the programming. I don’t watch a lot of UK broadcast TV because it’s either a bit creepy, or it’s outright negative, violent and bleak. The same goes for the American streamers, who seem to be churning out more and more shocking stuff because that’s how they get social media “buzz”.
There’s a lot of junk on YouTube, but because of the sheer volume of stuff on there, there’s also really interesting niche hobby stuff, travel stuff, anything you want to watch is there somewhere. It’s no wonder people are starting to walk away from the BBC and ITV and find what they want to see on online platforms.
All of this recent Ofcom and government focus on streamers and YouTube etc is likely a precursor to wanting to extract a licence fee from anyone with a computer, probably as a compulsory add-on to internet connectivity and mobile bills.
Well written response, not much difference to what I was going to say, nothing more I could add.
I dropped the TV licence 8-9 years ago, but i still like a Tv to watch streaming stuff on, or DVD/Blu-rays. I hate watching stuff on a tiny phone screen.
YouTube do have some4 good stuff on, but as MissTuned said, there is a lot of rubbish on it as well, just like normal TV.
I find it difficult to go back to linier TV now, waiting for stuff to come on at a certain time to watch, and setting the recorder to watch it at a later time. So used now to just watching what I want, when I want. I have Disney, Amazon Prime and ITVX at the moment on subscription, but I am looking at dropping Disney for a while.
That is the thing about streaming, no contract, just dip in and out when you want.
Now music, I find the prices for streaming music a bit high, the £10 a month for most of them, I do stream music on my Echo units via Amazon Prime, but i don;t get a choice of what to listen to, just a genre type. So if I want to listen to jazz, or stuff from the 60’s.
I still prefer CD’s, come to think of I still prefer vinyls.
I don’t know what will happen, I know the government said they have ruled out funding the BBC by general tax. , while I would like to see a subscription or adverts for the BBC, I doubt that will happen, so the next best thing would be to keep it as it is.
We still have until 2027, so not going to panic yet.
I know a fair few people that have dropped their TV licence.
A few paragraphs without mentioning Zzoomm, brilliant!
You mean, like the BT fanboys like to mention BT and Openbreach.
This article has nothing to do with broadband, so why would I mention my provider?
@Ad47uk, The contributor on this site is called Ivor, you like to call him BTIvor, no doubt a fanboy in your eyes. When it comes to Openreach, they get names like, Brokenreach, Openscreech and your latest being Openbreach. In answer to your last sentence, nothing has stopped you before talking about Zzoomm regardless of what the article in question was about. I was just drawing attention to this fact!
Does the usage include devices connected via Ethernet?
Seems odd to emphasise WiFi
To be fair, the majority of people use WiFi as opposed to ethernet.
@Fibre Scriber, as much as i try to get people to wire their TV directly to the router, most people don’t and also some dongles need a extra bit of hardware to do so.
Shame really, it would stop a lot of problems people have, because Wi-Fi is rubbish for the most part.
The problem is, people don’t want cables all over the place, and I can understand that. I think all new builds should have an Ethernet socket in every room and a place, so people can put a router. Should be standard these days in new builds, just like solar panels should be
@Ad47uk: A lot of the time people position their routers in places not conducive to good WiFi distribution i.e. behind the Tv, in a closed unit, beside a window or just on the floor. The best place for a router is in the middle of a persons home and up at a reasonable height. Some older houses have stone walls, which doesn’t help. Your suggestion of ethernet sockets is something that should be added to new builds, and probably will be through time, although at an increased cost too the buyer no doubt.
Allot of smart devices I’ve seen still only include Fast Ethernet, so ironically WiFi may be better depending on context.
A Fast Ethernet connection should still give better results than Wi-fi. No streaming services currently exceed 100Mbps anyway, and the reduced likelyhood of jitter is good for video.
Hoping the next advancement will be 1080p60 on YouTube a lot are streaming at 1080p30 which is a bit jerky watching the cricket on a large screen TV…that said Surrey CCC at the oval went to 1080p60…glorious.
YouTube hosts 4k videos and is working on 8k.
Most of the 1080p YouTube videos are 1080p25 or 1080p30 with a few at 1080p60 and even 1080p24.
Also ofcom, lets cudgel american companies to bend the knee and threaten american citizens who are protected by free speech first amendment
Very happy to see ofcom getting sued and guaranteed to lose the lawsuit. This hideous organization needs disbanding
This site often has posters advocating for one major incumbent telecoms provider and don’t like other view points as to why competition offers different products using new tech that are a lot better than legacy tech delivering 10:1 speed ratio. Despite using generic terms like BT Fans by me, some of them come back with replies that border personal. When you call it out in a reply post, using cut and paste of what they wrote, the post does not get past censorship for fear of exploding further replies, yet the original replies remain intact…hmmm. Two tier censorship.
Ofcom is the same as the other regulators, an unelected quango, usually, made up of selected suits or in case of energy and water regulators a suit from inside from one of the companies they regulate. They operate under guise of consumer interest, in reality, anything but.
You engage in ad hominem attacks, while most of your posts are obsessive.
@Far2329Light, From what is evident, it is YOU that does the attacks and labelling. Just because someone else has a different opinion than you. Tough, that’s life.
@FANNY ADAMS :
Before accusing others, take a look at your own posts.
Are you saying that Ofcom is being sued because it is providing guidance on one US-based service?
And the Australian government is about to ban YouTube for under 16s, which of course implies making it a great deal more difficult for adults to access as well. No doubt our government will follow suit, egged on by lobbying and ‘donations’ from the old media! It’s such a shame the authoritarion direction these governments are going.
16 year olds are now allowed to vote, but are not allowed to view political information is an insane contradiction
The Internet is under severe threat and people are distracted by all sorts of things. All the governments are very quickly implementing this Chinese style crackdown just like what they did with covid lockdowns, even with a right government in the US there is now a similar act brought forward in congress
It’s a great time to run a VPN company. Just hire Sydney Sweeney to advertise it
YouTube already applies age restrictions, but yes, it would be a concern if the UK government were to force YouTube to adopt age verification for all users. Indeed, it may be inevitable as content providers press YouTube to tighten its IP standards and providers seek a bigger share of revenues generated for social engagement on the platform.
One interesting finding is that that SVoD has plateaued since 2021 despite media giants spending billions to build up their brands and to compete with Netflix. No doubt market saturation, increasing subscriptions and cost of living crisis have all played a part, but one less well-know reason is the inexorable growth of FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV) channels available from, amongst others, Sky, Virgin Media, EE TV, Freeview Play, Samsung TV Plus, LG Channels and Freevee. Here you get a type of AVOD (Advertising-Based Video On Demand) but with the differentiator of a schedule. FAST is popular as consumers pay no subscription (but obviously have to put up with ads) and have the familiarity of knowing what’s coming as there is a schedule like linear TV.
I get most of my entertainment now from YouTube, yes I watch some slop but I also watch stuff nowhere near mainstream like retro tech deep dives, repairs and lower level explanations of how certain tech works.
Give me YouTube and my Plex server and I’ll be satisfied.
Ironically one of the best YouTube channels is the BBC Archive, which is an absolutely glorious treasure trove of cultural history. Revealing, amongst many other gems, that the 1989 episode of ‘Tomorrow’s World’ on ‘the house of 2020’ was generally quite prescient.
It’s this kind of provision for niche interests which makes YouTube so dominant. Whatever your geeky hobby, there’s quality content being made about it by knowledgeable, engaging creators which is simply more in-depth and more watchable than most mainstream TV.
That said, if the BBC could do more to provide access to – or even monetise – more of its vast archive, it might be in a healthier position both financially and reputationally.
Hmm, diverse views, so for considerations one more:
Traditional TV vs. Internet Streaming
Accessibility and Inclusivity
Traditional television, funded by licensing fees, is generally accessible to all, promoting societal inclusivity without the need for extensive data collection or profiling. This model simplifies standards monitoring and enforcement, allowing organizations like the ASA to effectively regulate content and advertising.
Challenges of Internet Streaming
In contrast, internet-based streaming services require consumers to invest in both equipment and subscriptions, creating barriers to access. This model often involves data collection, which should raise concerns about privacy and corporate profiteering. The sheer volume of content and the diverse geographic regulations complicate enforcement for standards bodies, making it harder to ensure consumer protection against harmful content.
Regulation and Accountability
The Need for Clear Boundaries
Need very clear distinctions between governmental, corporate, and individual (and parental) responsibilities is essential. Effective regulation must balance the need for consumer protection with the principles of freedom of expression. This includes addressing issues like misleading advertising, harmful content, and the potential for corporate manipulation.
Freedom vs. Censorship
The debate over what constitutes acceptable censorship is complex. While many advocate for internet freedom, there is a legitimate concern about the potential for anarchy without some level of regulation. The challenge lies in determining what level of oversight is necessary to protect consumers, particularly vulnerable populations like children, without infringing on individual freedoms.
Future Implications
Societal Good vs. Corporate Profit (or govenmental manipulation! should one mention 1984…)
As traditional free TV becomes less prevalent, the shift to internet-only models raises questions about societal good versus corporate profit and governmental data ‘shaping’. Will this transition lead to greater discrimination and exclusion, or can it foster a more inclusive environment? The potential for increased costs and subscription models may disproportionately affect lower-income individuals, exacerbating existing inequalities.
The Path Forward
The future of media consumption will likely require a nuanced approach that considers the diverse needs of society. Striking a balance between freedom and regulation is crucial. This includes:
Robust Regulatory Frameworks: Establishing clear guidelines for content and advertising that protect consumers while allowing for diverse viewpoints.
Consumer Education: Empowering individuals to understand their rights (and responsibilities, do you protect the stupid, wilfully ignorant, or are people deliberately kept in the the dark or drowned in minutae) and the implications of data collection and profiling.
Inclusive Access: Ensuring that all members of society can access essential services without financial barriers.
Ongoing Dialogue: Encouraging public discourse on the values we want to uphold in our media landscape, including the role of regulation and the importance of diverse perspectives.
Such concerns reflect a broader societal challenge that requires careful consideration (that we never seem to get for governments the game keepers vs corporate poachers) and proactive measures to ensure that the digital future serves the interests of all, rather than just a select few.
Damn the way this looses paragrping (sorry