What People Watch

In the opening months of 2024 Barb has encountered a number of conversations about the way house persons with children are changing their viewing behaviour. The Barb panel provides the industry with a definitive source of insight into behavioural change for this, and other targets. This what people watch will delve into what this group are watching.

Our audience have not moved away from the TV-set

At the most basic level we have total screen time. This measure is stable. Our audience spent an average of 283 minutes per day on across any screen in February 2024. This was +0.2% on February 2023. We also see that their device use hasn’t shifted dramatically. More than 80% of their viewing takes place on a TV-set, followed by smartphones with around 12%, then tablets and PCs. Chart one shows little real movement in these proportions.

Chart 1: Housepersons with children are spending similar amounts of time with each screen

Source: Barb

Time with the TV-set is being reallocated

With overall time on the TV-set stable we need to try and understand what people are doing on their sets that they weren’t before. Chart two shows seasonality we would expect from commercial TV, with dips in August. We can see increasing time with SVOD services – in January and February this was driven by rises time with Netflix and Disney+ for this audience particularly.

Chart 2: Viewing to unidentified content is up year-on-year for 9 of the last 14 months

Source: Barb

What we can also see from chart two is an increase in viewing to unidentified content. This happens when we know that the TV-set is on, we know that people are in front of that set, but we don’t know what they are doing on that screen. This TV-set use increased by 14% in January and 12% in February. Reaching an average of 52 and 49 minutes respectively. Compared to 46 minutes and 43 minutes in the same months for 2023.

We can pinpoint the source for some of this unidentified time

Unidentified viewing is not a new issue. Until November 2021 viewing to services like Netflix and YouTube was in this bucket. We knew they were a large part of unidentified viewing, but we couldn’t say how large a part. Now, as then, we can use classifications within Barb data to better understand this part of peoples viewing.

Device in use lets us see where people are spending this time. In February in particular we see that games console use is 33% higher in terms of total minutes than a year earlier. Alongside this we see a 12% year-on-year increase in both January and February for minutes where the content viewed is unidentified, but we can tell the source of that viewing is a Sky device.

From the March 27^th we can breakout viewing via Sky Glass devices specifically. Although a relatively small sample period, this shows that unidentified in Sky Glass homes is proportionally higher for house persons with children than in Sky Glass homes overall.

The data only lead us this far, but Sky Live is a possible explanation. Available to Sky Glass customers, it offers access to activities that would be classified as unidentified. It is possible to make video calls, play games or even take exercise classes. We would register this as time with Sky, but not time with a Barb monitored channel or service. This may be an early indicator of Sky Glass/Live making its mark on the viewing landscape. The fact that this is occurring in concert with an increase in use of games consoles and in homes where a younger audience are definitely present makes this appear more reasonable. Young people pickup new things faster. Fact.

Is gaming the new Magic Roundabout?

Most parents will at some stage concede control to promote harmony. Down the years that might have been allowing kids to watch The Magic Roundabout (originally 1965-1977), Danger Mouse (originally 1981-1992) or more recently the phenomenon that is Bluey. We often hear about the advance of gaming. We can’t be certain that this is what’s happening here, but old habits are often engaged, enabled and extended by technological advances. Sky Live and the games console might be meeting that age old parental need – distraction.

Time with the TV-set is unchanged, because the windows where distraction is needed – around meals, bath and bed – are largely unchangeable. What audiences do during that time is changeable and, it seems, changing.

Doug Whelpdale, Head of Insight, Barb

A note on definitions

Housepersons are the person with main responsibility for household duties, such as grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning. They can be male or female.