As new online services such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, BBC iPlayer and All4 continue to gain momentum, Ofcom has revealed that 50% of 16-24 year olds’ viewing is still through live TV broadcast.
However, according to the regulator’s latest review of public service TV broadcasting – the first review since 2008 – public service broadcasters must respond to changes in technology and viewer behaviour as online and on-demand viewing becomes increasingly important to viewers, particularly younger people.
Since 2008, investment in new UK content, including sports content, from the PSBs – BBC, ITV, STV, UTV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and S4C – has fallen by around £440 million in real terms, a decline of 15% between 2008 and 2014.
Ofcom says that broadcasters have met this challenge through a mixture of savings and changes to the types of programmes they make, and as a result the volume of new content remains high, with 32,491 hours of new UK programmes from the PSBs in 2014, compared to 33,981 hours in 2008.
Audience satisfaction increased from 69% to 79% during the same period.
However, Ofcom has said that broadcasters need to “adapt their models to maximise commercial revenues and efficiencies,” and the PSB system needs to evolve as the trend towards online viewing grows.
Otherwise, Ofcom says, PSBs are likely to face difficult choices about which content and services they are able to fund.
This week the BBC announced that it is to axe its flagship youth and comedy channel, BBC Three, as a broadcast channel and instead move it online where those aged 16 to 34 are already “far more likely” than any other group to be.
However, there remain concerns that the BBC will lose younger and other under-served television viewers who do not watch other BBC TV services or do not have reliable broadband, as well as the ability to try out new ideas and develop new talent.
Currently, over half of all TV viewing is to the main PSB channels, rising to over 70% when all the channels broadcast by PSBs, such as time-shifted ‘+1’ channels, are taken into account.
