What People Watch

An assertion I’m often faced with is that people just don’t watch linear TV anymore – fortunately I have access to trusted evidence of whether this is true or not.

Our Total Identified Viewing chart is a useful first port of call. It allows for a direct comparison of TV companies with streaming services – be they VOD or video-sharing. By definition, all of the VOD and video-sharing time is streamed, but what of the TV companies – does linear still matter there?

Chart 1: Barb measures more than 4 hours of viewing per day

Source: Barb. Total Identified Viewing. February 2025

TV isn’t dying, it’s having babies

The supposed death of TV has become a well-worn trope for some, backed up by certain interpretations of Barb data. However, this ignores the fact that TV is, and always has been, evolving. This was perhaps most neatly encapsulated by the quote from Tess Alps that “TV isn’t dying, it’s having babies.” There have been numerous stories in recent months, again based on Barb data, that illustrate the success of TV companies’ VOD services. Increases in minutes viewed of 22% from Channel 4 Streaming, for example. Or the fact that more than half of ITVX’s audience is under 55, compared to 33% for total TV. These are stories to be celebrated.

It’s not all about babies

But does this again play to the idea that everything is, or will be, streamed? Well, while any parent knows it might feel that way sometimes, life is not entirely about the babies. What came before was important and remains important. The way in which TV companies first put content in front of viewers – TV channels – still matters, and not just to older generations. The first episode of Britain’s Got Talent reached 1.1m 16–34-year-olds in seven days. Beast Games – the game show from Mr Beast (one of the most subscribed to YouTubers on the planet), on Amazon Prime Video – reached almost exactly the same number of 16-34-year-olds, but it took eight weeks – and nine of ten episodes – from release in mid-December 2024 to reach that mark. Premier League matches reached 2.2m 16-34s in January alone across Sky and TNT Sports. So younger audiences can be found at scale on streamers and with TV companies.

What about TV’s cousins?

So, if TV’s babies are thriving, what of its near relatives, the streaming services? They too are clearly thriving. More than two-thirds of UK homes have access to a streaming VOD service, up from 17% just ten years ago.

YouTube, a different kind of streamer, is also growing up, having turned 20 recently. We report time spent viewing YouTube through the home WIFi network and can see it’s grown by grown by 29% in just three years from January 2022 to January 2025. But, just as TV companies are evolving, so is YouTube. In January 2022, at-home YouTube viewing was mainly on smartphones, with 28% on a TV set. In January 2025, that figure is 43%. Time spent viewing YouTube on the TV set has doubled, while time on smartphones is up just 5%. The TV set is now comfortably the leading device for watching YouTube in the home.

A new map to understand the viewing landscape

Our challenge, then, is how best to reflect the landscape so that everyone can find their way and understand where we are on the journey to fully streamed. Our waterfall chart that splits TV companies, VOD services and video-sharing services is useful, but it obscures some nuance. TV companies also have significant streaming offerings, while VOD services are offering more “appointment-to-view” content, be that the latest period drama or a live sporting event.

Chart 2: Two simple questions offer an alternate way to map viewing

Have catch-up, will use it

If we use the map above to cut viewing figures (below), we can see that streaming is clearly growing. Its use to watch content on the day of release / broadcast has grown significantly in the last three years – albeit from a low base. Now, where viewers can catch up, or decide when to watch, they very often will. It’s non-streaming – i.e. viewing on a linear TV channel – which accounts for most of the viewing that takes place on the day of broadcast or release.

Chart 3: On demand streaming now a third of TV-set time, up from a quarter three years ago

Source: Barb – viewing on TV sets only

Meet the new TV, same as the old TV

If streamed viewing is the future, does this mean that TV companies are being left behind? The data would indicate that this is not so. TV companies account for a significant and growing proportion of streamed minutes – 37% in 2024, up from 28% in 2022. We return to an old truth – human behaviour is slower to change than the technology that enables that change.

Streamed viewing has grown its share to 40% from 25% in 3 years. Current legislation ensures that broadcast TV will continue to 2034. Streaming’s growth will need to pick up the pace if linear is to become obsolete in just nine years.

For our collective understanding of the changing landscape, Barb is always looking to measure the change all around. New services represent a revolution in some ways, and to that we must be alive. Indeed, Barb will report on what people watch via these services, just like yesterday.

Doug Whelpdale is Head of Insight at Barb.

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