Insight

How is it already late October? It’s a familiar cry from those lamenting the end of summer, but from a TV point of view it means a return to some proper comfort telly. Strictly and Bake Off are back, with audiences in excess of six million. Audiences tune-in in their droves for some cosy autumn programming.

At a time when live viewing is falling, these programmes still attract it in large volumes. The results show for week two of Strictly on BBC1 on October 5th achieved 93% of its 7-day audience live or viewed on the same day as live (VOSDAL). This is a programme that you need to watch the day its released, or else someone may spoil it for you.

Live viewing is big but falling, while streamed on day of release is small but rising

In March 2025, we introduced a different way of assessing Total Identified Viewing. Regardless of whether the source of viewing is a TV company, streamer or video-sharing service, we showed that on-demand viewing was growing, and live viewing was declining. This trend continues, but live (or day of broadcast) viewing still accounted for half of TV-set time in September this year.

Chart 1: Live is still half of TV-set viewing
Source: Barb January 1st 2022 – September 30th 2025.

Pure-play streamer viewing on day of release is 53% higher than three years ago

Interestingly, streaming on the day of broadcast or release is growing. This is the dark teal portion of chart 1. Viewing of this type is still only 5% of time with the TV-set, but it is undoubtedly growing. This is true for TV companies’ streaming services and pure-play streamers. Taking the latter on their own, we see significant growth since September 2022. Isolating it in chart 2 the trend is clear. Regular peaks around Christmas stand out and are growing, while the peak in March of this year was driven by the Champions League, Reacher (series 3) and Last One Laughing: UK on Amazon, alongside Adolescence and Drive to Survive on Netflix.

Chart 2: Release-day viewing via streamers is growing
Source: Barb January 1st 2022 – September 30th 2025. Viewing on day of release for content on Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, Apple TV and Paramount+. TV-set only.

Sport is well understood as a driver to live viewing, but Reacher and LOL:UK demonstrate how a staggered release schedule for a programme can build anticipation and create moments for viewers to experience a show collectively. These shows had different release patterns, but both had final episodes (four for Reacher and two for LOL:UK) that dropped in March.

Cosy crime creeps in quietly

While participants in Strictly and Bake Off can attain temporary fame, cosy crime is a genre of programming that is gaining loyal followers. Midsomer Murders is probably the OG of this genre, although older readers may consider Columbo (which debuted in 1971) to be the true cosy crime original. More recently the BBC’s Death in Paradise has had one successful spin off, Beyond Paradise, with another on the way, Return to Paradise.

There are numerous others such as Whitstable Pearl from U&Drama and Murder Before Evensong on 5. There are at least 16 shows, both long-running and new, that are available to watch in this genre now.

The Thursday Murder Club arrives with a bang

If these shows have expanded the cosy crime quietly, then The Thursday Murder Club has stolen their thunder somewhat less subtly. Of course, when the original author is TV’s Richard Osman and the film is launched on Netflix with a cast of national treasures, quiet is probably not the aim.

The film received much attention, but only 22% of its 6.6m 7-day audience watched on the day of release. This compares to 61% of the 3.1m who watched Murder Before Evensong episode one on 5 over seven days when it was released on October 7th. This figure does vary somewhat – for Whitstable Pearl on U&Drama, 52% of the almost 1m who watched episode six over seven days watched on the day of broadcast.

Overall, viewers seem to want to be amongst the first people to see new episodes of a programme. While that proportion varies when we look at day of broadcast or release, it may be more useful to consider a slightly longer period akin to the opening weekend for a cinema release.

“See it first” viewing is like an opening weekend for cinema

The comparison with cinema isn’t perfect as TV shows are dropped on different days of the week, but the innate desire of people to watch something first seems to persist. The concept of live doesn’t quite translate as pure-play streamer shows don’t usually drop in a specific time slot, but an opening weekend may be a better fit for both environments.

Returning to Netflix’s The Thursday Murder Club – if we give our “see it first” viewers three days, they account for 67% of the 7-day audience. That figure for the final episode of Reacher (series 3) is 76%. Doing the same for the first episode of 5’s Murder Before Evensong audience produces a figure of 81%.

It’s comfort telly, but many viewers aren’t comfortable waiting too long to see it.

Doug Whelpdale, Head of Insight, Barb

Doug also shares some of these insights in the following video: