After taking a look at the figures produced by BARB, the UK commercial TV marketing group Thinkbox has calculated that people watched more linear commercial TV in the period January to June 2011.
BARB’s figures showed that the percentage of total viewing that was on commercial channels was 64% for the first half of 2011, up from 62% the previous year. Total TV viewing was also up, with the average Brit watching 4 hours 3 minutes of TV a day.
Reasons identified for this increase were:
- Social media galvanising audiences around watching and sharing TV ‘live’ via a second screen (75% of those with broadband and digital TV have ‘two-screened’, according to Thinkbox/Decipher research);
- Increased risk of ‘spoilers’ via social media making live viewing imperative;
- Increased choice of TV content as digital switchover reaches 93.1% of households;
- New TV technologies, such as digital recorders and HDTV, which enhance the TV experience and magnetise viewers to the TV set;
- On-demand TV encouraging more linear TV viewing (89% of on-demand TV is to catch-up with linear TV, according to Thinkbox/Decipher research);
- The economic and weather climates in the UK;
- BARB’s updated TV measurement system, launched in January 2010, which more accurately captures viewing via second TV sets and ‘catch-up’ TV viewed on TV sets within 7 days of broadcast.
Importantly, for advertisers, the increase in linear viewing means more people are watching advertisements at normal speeds (rather than speeding past them with a PVR).
The average viewer watched 47 ads a day during the first six months of 2011 compared to 45 ads during the same period last year, adding up to 2.7 billion TV ads seen at normal speed every day in the UK.
Source: Thinkbox — Commercial TV viewing continues growth