LONDON: The past year has seen a dramatic surge in the proportion of Britons watching Netflix, according to the latest IPA Touchpoints data, which reports that they are spending more time per day watching television/video than ever before.

IPA TouchPoints is a consumer-focused, cross-media, cross-device database that details how consumers are spending their daily lives and how their media consumption fits into this.

And the 2018 iteration indicates that British consumers are watching significantly more SVoD channels in general than last year (2 hours 20 minutes vs 2 hours 10 minutes), with growth fuelled by Netflix in particular: it is now the sixth most-watched channel for all adults, and the second most-watched for millennials.

In 2018, 29% of all adults are watching Netflix each week, which is up from 20% in 2017 and marks a 45% increase year-on-year.

These figures are almost double for 15- to 34-year-olds; 54% of them are watching Netflix each week, up from 39% in 2017, which marks a 38% increase in viewers year-on-year.

Further, not only are more viewers turning on to Netflix, adults are watching it for on average six minutes longer than in 2017 – now for an average of 2 hours 14 minutes per day each. Meanwhile 15-34s are watching it for 2 hours 19 per day.

Overall, 99% of people are watching 4 hours and 41 minutes of television/video in general per day (a 2% increase from 2017) and for an average of 32 hours and 46 mins each week (a year-on-year increase of 38 mins).

The majority of viewing remains live broadcast but there has been an increase in on-demand viewing, while the Netflix effect is also evident in the fact that 52% of all television/video viewers say they binge watch episodes.

“All broadcasters are increasingly at the mercy of consumers’ daily habits, rather than consumers being at the mercy of the broadcasters’ scheduling decisions,” observed Belinda Beeftink, Deputy Research Director, IPA.



After television/video, OOH is the second largest medium, matching television on reach but with less hours exposure (99% / 3 hrs 24 mins). Radio/audio takes third place with a weekly reach of 91% and 3 average hours whilst social networking/messaging is now the fourth largest medium for adults with an 87% weekly reach and average daily hours usage of 3 hrs and 9 mins.

Sourced from IPA; additional content by WARC staff