Eight in ten UK TV owners stream on the set. Live broadcast still reaches 64 per cent

Expert Reviews asked 1,041 people in Britain what they actually do with the television in the living room. Half of them use it for YouTube.

Live broadcast still reaches 64 per cent of TV owners

Streaming films and shows came top at 80 per cent. Live broadcast television followed at 64 per cent, and live sport at 55 per cent. YouTube reached 50 per cent, gaming 31 per cent and music 29 per cent. Web browsing on the set trailed at 12 per cent.

The categories overlap, so the same household appears in several rows. What the numbers show is that the set is no longer a single-purpose screen, and that broadcast has not vacated it.

Northerners pass 21 hours a week more often than southerners

Most respondents watch between 15 and 20 hours a week. Above 21 hours the regions split: 35 per cent in the north against 30 per cent in the south. Social media runs the other way, with 38 per cent of southerners above 21 hours against 36 per cent in the north.

Only 1 per cent said they watch no television during the week.

Andy White and Tom Lord read the same figure differently

Andy White, deputy editor at Expert Reviews, said there is still plenty of appetite for live television despite the move to streaming. Tom Lord, product and consumer manager for TV at Hisense UK, used the 80 per cent streaming figure to argue for better living-room hardware.

Hisense is a TV maker and Expert Reviews runs the awards these figures accompany. Neither is a neutral party, and the sample of 1,041 is small for regional splits of a few points.

Planners get a reach argument, not a budget argument

A 64 per cent broadcast figure says the channel is alive. It does not say how many hours or how much attention it takes. Earlier work found that UK adults spend 44 per cent of their commercial media time alone with a screen.

Broadcasters and retailers are both moving onto the same panel. ZDF added more than 15 themed channels to its app, while Best Buy turned the televisions it sold into ad space.

The gap worth pricing is the 16 points between streaming at 80 per cent and broadcast at 64 per cent. That is the share of TV owners a broadcast-only plan now misses, and a 1,041-person sample puts the margin on those points at roughly three.