More evidence of the shifting viewership behavior of younger audiences: UK regulator Ofcom’s first annual Media Nations report found that 16-34 year-olds there now watch an average of 2 hours, 37 minutes per day of OTT content vs. 2 hours, 11 minutes of broadcast content across all devices.  

The younger group’s OTT consumption is almost double the overall population’s of 1 hour, 28 minutes. Across all age groups, 71% of viewing time is still with broadcast content. However, broadcast TV viewership on TVs dropped by 9 minutes, or 4.2% in 2017 to an average of 3 hours, 22 minutes per day. Since 2012, broadcast viewership has decreased by 38 minutes per day or 15.7%.

For the 16-34 year-old group, their OTT viewership represents 54% of their overall video content consumption of 4 hours, 48 minutes per day, with 34% spent on devices other than the TV. The biggest share is an average of 59 minutes per day spent on YouTube on non-TV devices, with SVOD next with 30 minutes per day on average.

Still, the report highlights the rapid adoption of SVOD services in the UK, with Amazon Prime Video growing by 32.7% from Q1 ’17 to Q1 ’18 to 4.8 million subscribers, followed by Netflix which grew by 32.2% to a market-leading 9.1 million subscribers. In all, there were 15.4 million SVOD subscribers at the end of Q1 ’18 compared to 15.1 million pay-TV subscribers. The report said that 11.1 million UK households (39.3%) have at least 1 SVOD subscription (Netflix, Amazon or NOW TV).

Original content and time-shifting were the main reasons for signing up for Netflix, while free shipping was tops for Amazon, though it declined in importance. It’s also worth noting that 71% of SVOD subscribers said they still had a pay-TV service, basically flat from a year earlier. The report attributed this to SVOD not carrying live sports that are on pay-TV. 36% of SVOD subscribers said they’d shave a premium service from their pay-TV subscription, while just 14% said they cut the cord entirely.

Helping the OTT services is that over half of UK households now have a TV set connected to the Internet. 44% have a smart TV and another 11% have a connected TV device.

Overall the report provides a fascinating picture of how consumption patterns are changing for younger audiences, enabled by popular SVOD services, original content and technologies such as broadband and devices.

The full report can be downloaded here.