According to Ofcom’s annual Media Nations report, in 2021, UK commercial Public Service Broadcasters (which includes ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5) achieved their highest revenues since 2016, generating £2.4B. Ofcom says that PSB revenues were buoyed by a return to growth for the TV advertising trade, after six consecutive years of contraction. Despite a 13% decline in live TV viewing since the previous year, TV ad revenues increased to £4.7B, boosted by major sporting events like Euro 2020.
The rise in revenues occurred despite the weekly reach of PSB channel declining four percentage points, to 76% from 2019. Ofcom states that only 47% of 16-24 year-olds watch at least 15 consecutive minutes of the PSB channels in an average week.
UK commercial broadcast revenues more broadly rose strongly in 2021, reaching £11.3B – a 100.6% increase over the previous year, and 4.5% higher than in 2019.
Ofcom reports that the average viewing time for Live TV was 144 minutes per day, while viewing time for SVOD services was 58 minutes, and BVOD, 15 minutes. The average viewing time on YouTube (not on TV) was 43 minutes.
While SVOD viewing time fell by 6% in 2021, Ofcom notes that this caused only a small decline in its share of all video viewing – decreasing from 19% to 18%. By contrast, BVOD viewing time actually rose by 3 minutes per person, per day “partially offsetting the declines for other forms of broadcast TV viewing.”
Ofcom reports that SVOD services like Netflix and Disney+ were used by 67% of UK households by Q2 2022 (representing a 1% decline from the previous quarter.) Despite this small decline, Ofcom notes that “a combination of price rises and increases in subscriber numbers drove strong revenue growth for the SVOD sector in 2021, with the 27% year-on-year increase, to £2.7bn, almost matching the bumper 28% growth in 2020.”
Richard Halton, Director, UK, Roku, said: “The findings of Ofcom’s report clearly shows that the trend towards TV streaming continues, reinforcing our view that all TV will be streamed. Whether through the growth in PSB on-demand services or the continued popularity of global streaming services. Given that over 80% of the country state that they’ve used a PSB on-demand service recently, it also demonstrates the worth that consumers place in our national broadcasters.
“Ad-supported services provide great value to consumers and have an increasingly important role to play in their TV streaming mix.”
