Average Brit spending £25 per month on TV

Viewers in the UK and Ireland are spending an average of £25 per month on TV services, claims a new report.

According to a study conducted by Netgem TV, viewers between the age of 41-50 pay the most, with over 40% spending more than £50 per month month on their TV services. Unsurprisingly, millennial viewers aged 21-30 are the lowest paying, with 74% of this demographic spending less than £20 per month.

This group also has the highest proliferation of cord-cutters, with over 55% of them paying for two or more streaming services in lieu of a pay TV provider.

The study of 750 consumers also found that viewers in Greater London and the South East (including counties such as Surrey, Berkshire and Oxfordshire) are the highest paying, with a majority of these residents paying over £50 per month. Some 70% of Londoners fall into this category, with 90% of the city’s respondents having at least one additional streaming service and paying for more expensive pay TV operators such as BT and Sky.

By contrast, Scotland spends the least on TV services with 46% paying under £20 per month and a quarter spending less than £10 per month.

Elsewhere, the report also examined TV viewers’ watching habits during the now-easing lockdown. TV series bingeing has unsurprisingly emerged as the favourite, with 73% saying that it is their primary form of lockdown entertainment. This is followed by film watching (68%) and news (57%). Overall, 33% of consumers said that they are watching more live TV than they did prior to lockdown, despite the lack of live sports coverage.

Sylvain Thevenot, managing director of Netgem TV, said: “The increased demand for series and films shows that the average Brit wants escapism at this time. TV services should be focussing all efforts in making this possible by putting together the best content offer at the lowest possible prices, so that customers can choose providers by content alone rather than having the pain points of comparing shifting prices and cross-referencing limited time deals.”