Digital TV News

Timeshifted TV hits new heights

Wednesday 19 October, 2011

By Kelvin Goodson

Catch-up television now accounts for 10% of the TV we watch

“Timeshifted” TV viewing has reached a new high in the UK, according to the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board.

Timeshifted viewing - non-live viewing of programmes within seven days of when they were originally aired - made up 10% of all the television we watched in the week ending 25 September.

However, the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB), found that much of our timeshifted viewing tends to take place on the same day as the original broadcast was aired, with 48% of timeshifted viewing in the week ending 25 September taking place within that time.

Across the ten most-viewed channels in that particular week, 20% of the total viewing of drama series’ was timeshifted, followed by 16% for soaps, 15% for documentaries and 13% for entertainment.

These figures rose for those who viewed timeshifted TV via a personal video recorder, such as Sky+, rather than via a digital TV provider’s catch-up service like BBC iPlayer or DVD recorder, to 32% for drama series’, 26% for soaps, 23% for documentaries and 21% for entertainment.

BARB also found that the proportion of timeshifted TV viewing varies by demographic. The organisation said “broadly speaking” young adults and the middle classes watch more timeshifted TV.

Last month marked 10 years since Sky launched Sky+. Over 8.1 million homes in the UK now have the personal video recorder service, which is more than have cats, dogs or even children, according to the satellite TV provider.