Channel 4
Lockdown winners
Celebrity Gogglebox
G
ifted a captive audience, television has seen its ratings soar during the coronavirus crisis. “People are spending much longer in front of TV sets,” Justin Sampson, CEO of ratings body Barb, told an RTS Zoom event in June. During the first nine weeks of the lockdown, people spent an average of five hours seven minutes in front of the box, a third more than during the same period in 2019. Audiences are at “the kind of levels you’d normally see at Christmas”, added Sampson, who was one of a four-strong panel discussing TV viewing during the lockdown. It is unsurprising that – confined to their homes – audiences have turned to TV for both news about the coronavirus crisis and respite from it. But, delve a little deeper into the stats, and far more interesting changes in viewing habits emerge. Traditional TV is doing well – and perhaps better than many expected. A snap poll of the RTS webinar audience revealed that almost two-thirds thought that the most surprising viewing story to come out of lockdown was the rediscovery of linear TV. Yet, viewing of Barb-reported channels, which includes the public service
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Viewing of linear channels has surged in recent months, but the biggest victors are on-demand services such as Netflix broadcasters but not “unidentified viewing” – the likes of Netflix and other SVoDs, gaming, YouTube and overseas satellite channels – has risen by only 18%. Unidentified viewing, however, has increased to almost 30% of all TV set usage during the lockdown. “This is a significant step change in what was an increasing trend anyway,” said Sampson. Among younger viewers, unidentified viewing accounts for more than half of all their TV watching during lockdown. Sampson said the rise in unidentified viewing had been “more significant than I would have estimated. From the data we’re starting to see, we think the SVoD services are instrumental in that.” Given both the severity and novelty of a global pandemic, it is scarcely surprising that viewers have been glued to the news. “There’s an enormous amount of viewing of news programmes among
older people,” said Sampson, “but there are some very encouraging growth figures in younger audiences.” Coronavirus has brought back younger viewers to traditional TV, an audience that many media pundits thought had abandoned it for good. Digital UK, the organisation that runs Freeview, carried out a survey into attitudes to broadcasting a month into lockdown. “TV is still seen as the most important medium for information by all [age] groups,” said its CEO, Jonathan Thompson. Public service broadcasting is highly valued, the survey found. “There had been this narrative emerging that anyone under 30 was completely disengaged with PSBs, but both the viewing behaviour during the lockdown and the attitudinal evidence we’re seeing in our research highlight that this is not true.” Among 16- to 34-year-olds, he added, “two-thirds are saying that they are relying on the PSBs for news and information, and that they trust them much more than other providers”. The same group also values universality, with 90% supporting a “free TV service”. “At the start of lockdown, people wanted trustworthy news sources,” said Martin Greenbank, head of advertising research and development at Channel 4. This view was “pretty much
