Ofcom releases UK Communications Market annual report

People in the UK are spending more time using communications services than ever before – but paying less for them, according to Ofcom’s latest annual report into the UK’s £51 billion communications industry.

TV: online and on-demand

Whilst there has been a small increase in the number of minutes spent each day watching the TV (218 minutes in 2007, compared with 216 in 2006), we are increasingly taking control of our TV viewing. Viewers are watching programmes when they want and how they want, rather than just relying on the TV schedules.

The proportion of people with an internet connection who are watching TV programmes online more than doubled from 8 to 17 per cent in twelve months. The BBC iPlayer, which enables viewers to watch programmes up to a week after they were broadcast, delivered more than 700,000 daily video streams in May 2008.

Nearly a third of internet users (32 per cent) watched video clips and webcasts in 2007, compared to a fifth (21 per cent) in 2006. The number of UK internet users who watched YouTube, reached 9 million in April this year, nearly 50 per cent more than a year ago.

More of us are now able to choose when to watch, pause and rewind live TV. At the end of 2007 nearly 6 million households (23%) had a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) up by 53% in a year.

Key Market Developments – Television and Radio

• By July 2008, nearly 9 out of 10 households had digital television (87.2) compared to 7 out of 10 twelve months ago.
• By March of this year, nearly 80 per cent of all TV sets sold in the UK were High-Definition (HD) ready, up from 50 per cent in twelve months. The number of HD subscriptions more than doubled to reach 829,000 over the same period.
• People are favouring larger television screens – a fifth of all TV sales were for 33 inch screens and larger.
• When asked which media activity would be missed the most, more than half of us (52 per cent) said it would be watching TV, up from 44 per cent in 2005. The next highest ‘most-missed’ activity would be using a mobile phone at 13 per cent, up from 10 per cent in 2005. Conversely, the 16-19 age group put their mobiles ahead of the television. Some 42 per cent of these teenagers said they would miss their mobile most. For them, watching TV came next at 20 per cent.
• Over half (57 per cent) of viewing in homes with digital television was of the five main Public Service Broadcaster (PSB) channels, down slightly from 58 per cent in 2006.
• That was more than offset by the viewing share of the PSBs’ other channels (such as ITV2, BBC Three and E4) which grew from 11 per cent to nearly 14 per cent of all viewing.
• By March 2008, 7 million households (27 per cent) had a DAB radio set, up from 17 per cent on last year.

More: The Communications Market 2008 (August)