Insight

At times of great significance people turn to their televisions for news they can trust. To feel part of an event. And to observe historic moments.

The death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is unquestionably a significant moment in the history of the United Kingdom. Almost 80% of those alive in the UK today have never known another monarch on the throne. Only 3% were adults in 1952 when the Queen acceded to the throne. This, then, is history in the making.

Parts of the funeral were available to view on more than 50 channels in the UK – an unprecedented number. Taking those channels together, the live TV-set audience averaged 26.2 million for the funeral service at Westminster Abbey (11am – 12:06pm), a share of 95%.

Much was made of the fact that this was less than half the UK population. However, if we consider the reach of all broadcasts that prefaced the day and then covered the events up to the final service at St George’s Chapel, we see a figure of 36.5m – almost 60% of the population aged 4+.

Given that coverage on BBC1 alone spanned 8am – 5pm it is hardly surprising that the reach figure is high. We might speculate that these 50 or so channels would achieve comparable reach on any similar day. In fact, the same group of channels reached a maximum of 32.4m people per day from all their programming during bank holidays in May, June and August of this year. That encompasses the Platinum Jubilee events in June.

We are also able to understand the audience that chose to watch away from the TV set. This audience for the service at Westminster Abbey was just under 300k, with the significant majority coming from BBC iPlayer. Adding just over 1% to the TV-set audience is in line with the average we see for all viewing. In this instance, with a bank holiday in the UK, it also makes sense that those who stayed at home watched on the best available screen.

Where, then, did the audience sit in terms of the largest that Barb has measured? This was the seventh most watched broadcast event since 1981.

Table: Top 10 BARB-measured programmes since 1981

Clearly with such comparisons, context is key. The statement of the then-Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to start the first lockdown on March 23rd 2020 was only six minutes long and was directly relevant to every person living in the UK. Programming from the 1980s and 1990s faced no competition from on-demand services and only a nascent internet.

By contrast, England’s defeat in the final of the European Championships was a made for TV event, with attendance in real life only an option for 90,000 people, compared to those hundreds of thousands who lined the route to see the Queen’s final journeys.

Nevertheless, with the lack of alternative programming available, one might have expected to see a higher audience figure for the funeral. One may also have expected that, with broadcast channels dominated by funeral coverage, we would see a surge in viewing to SVOD/AVOD and video sharing services.

The data show that this was not the case – audiences to these services were below their normal levels. If we look at viewing on an average weekend – perhaps a fairer comparison to a bank holiday – the picture also shows viewing to these services markedly lower on the day of the Queen’s funeral.

Chart: SVOD and YouTube audience levels below normal during funeral

Source: Barb. Minute level audiences to any content between 10:30 and 14:00. Weekend audiences are an average of August 27/28, September 3/4, 10/11 and 17/18 2022.

In the chart above the solid line reflects audiences on September 19th – the day of the funeral. While the dotted line is the average achieved by the same service over the previous four weekends.

Although all the services highlighted here achieved lower audiences compared to their prior four weekend average, not all were equally impacted. Between 10:30am and 2pm YouTube averaged just over a quarter of normal viewing levels. Next most impacted was Amazon Prime Video at 37% of normal levels, followed by Netflix at 50% and Disney+ at 59%.

With children’s attention most likely to wander during an entire day of televised state ceremony, its perhaps unsurprising that Disney+ came closest to maintaining average audience levels.

If we extend this analysis into the evening peak hours, we see the SVOD services regain normal audience levels, albeit with peaks slightly earlier. YouTube, however, remains significantly under its weekend norm.

The viewing landscape is unquestionably becoming more crowded, but moments of national significance still draw in vast audiences to broadcast channels. SVOD and video-sharing services provide a rich variety of alternatives to broadcast channels, but at historic moments viewers are still, for now at least, drawn to linear channels before streaming options.

Streaming can, after all, be done at any time. Witnessing historic events as they unfold can only happen once.

Doug Whelpdale, Head of Insight at Barb