A new report from Ofcom and BDRC Continental, published on Wednesday, has shed light on how the UK is watching on-demand content.
71% of UK adults aged 16+ now claim to have watched on-demand and online content, according to the report – with almost universal use among the younger age groups.
Indeed, 94% of 16-24 year olds claim to have watched on-demand content, while a decline was seen among older age groups, falling to 32% of those over 65.
Short-form on-demand and online content such as that available on social networking sites is generally consumed more widely and more often than long-form content that is more ‘TV-like’; however, the report notes that an important exception to this is the use of long-form TV catch-up services, which are used as much as the most-used short-form service, non-professional YouTube content (74% and 72%, respectively).
PCs, Macs and laptops are the most widely and frequently used devices to access on-demand and online content, used by 74%, compared with smartphones (49%) and tablets (40%).
Where on-demand and online viewing is TV-based, this is most commonly done via a subscription set-top box (49%), a games console (29%) or a non-subscription set-top box (26%). A fifth of respondents claim to have viewed online content via a smart TV.
The report also highlights a number of concerns from viewers over sexual and violent content – with 11% saying that they have seen something of concern on an on-demand service.
The top three concerns for those over 16 were violence (39%), sex (30%) and bad language (27%) – the same as those measured for broadcast television. Other substantial areas of concern include the welfare of children and young people (26%), discrimination (22%) and online bullying/victimisation (21%).
The most common response to seeing concerning content is to stop viewing the specific content but to continue using the service (50%), while 31% said that they have made a complaint either to the content provider (24%) or to a third-party body (15%).
