Younger viewers have turned off live TV in their droves with a third of all TV watching among 16 to 24-year-olds now via on-demand services such as the BBC’s iPlayer and House of Cards broadcaster Netflix.



Media regulator Ofcom said there was a “widening gap” between the habits of younger and older viewers with a “substantial fall” in viewing on TV sets.

In an age of on-demand viewing on mobiles and tablets, viewing on paid-for on-demand sites such as Netflix and Amazon – which will show Jeremy Clarkson’s The Grand Tour in the autumn – has more than tripled in two years.

Ofcom said, on average, individuals in the UK watched three hours and 36 minutes of measured broadcast TV a day last year, 26 minutes fewer than five years ago.

The drop was most pronounced among 16 to 24-year-olds and children, where viewing fell more than a quarter. The decline became less pronounced the older the viewers got, and was largely unchanged among over-65s.

The figures were revealed in Ofcom’s annual research report about public service broadcasting for 2016, published on Monday.

Ofcom said viewing to traditional live TV was lowest among 16 to 24-year-olds, accounting for just 36% of all their viewing across all screens, including mobile and tablets.

Compare this to over-65s, where live TV accounted for 83% of all their viewing.

Viewers aged 16 to 24 spent 20% of their time watching paid on-demand TV or films, and 14% viewing short online video clips on places such as YouTube. Free on-demand TV and films accounted for 13% of their viewing, with just 6% on DVD and Blu-Ray.

In total, UK public service broadcasters spent £2.5bn on first run UK originated content in 2015, a 23% decrease in real terms from £3.26bn in 2005.

Spend on music and arts and children’s programmes were among the hardest hit.

There was £77m spent on first run UK originated children’s programmes last year, a real terms decrease of 45% on a decade ago.

Just £36m was spent on original UK arts and classical music programmes last year, a real terms fall of 14% on the previous year.

Original UK comedy spending also fell, by 4% to £99m.

Factual programming was up, by 8% on the previous year to £522m. Drama was also up, by 12% on the previous year to £311m, although this was 46% lower in real terms than in 2006.

The main public service broadcasters - the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 - have continued to see their share of the audience fall, to 70.7% of TV viewing last year, down from 77.2% 10 years ago.

BBC1’s decline bottomed out several years ago, down from 23.3% to 21.9% across the decade, but ITV has been in sharp decline, to 14.2% from 21.5% over the same period.

Viewing of news programmes increased last year, after three consecutive years of decline, according to date from the official industry body Barb.

The time children (aged four to 15-years-old) spent watching TV fell 15% between 2010 and 2015, to 190 hours per child a year, the lowest level of viewing in a decade.