The Consumption of Traditional vs Digital Media

It’s often assumed that the intake of digital media is slowly replacing traditional media. But is this true?  A recent report by The Global Web Index analysed the amount of time that people devote to traditional forms of media compared with online media.

The study looked at TV, radio and press consumption across different age groups in 41 different markets around the world.

Here are a few key statistics from the UK:

Television consumption in the UK

When asked how many hours per day they spent watching television, people in the UK averaged 2 hours and 36 minutes, ranking 3rd in all the surveyed regions. For online forms of television, the UK ranked 10th, at 1 hour and 7 minutes of viewing time.

When compared with figures from 2014, online TV viewing has greatly increased – by 1 hour and 8 minutes – while broadcast TV viewing has decreased by 19 minutes.

Radio consumption in the UK

Although the UK did not rank in the top ten regions for broadcast radio listening or radio/music streaming, here are how the figures stacked up. The UK currently listens to 1 hour and 7 minutes of broadcast radio a day and spends 1 hour and 16 minutes streaming music or radio.

Back in 2014, those surveyed only listened to 30 minutes of broadcast radio (the current figures show an increase of 37 minutes in 4 years). Yet the difference in time spent streaming music has seen negligible change in 4 years, with an increase of 1 minute.

Press consumption in the UK

Once again, the UK did not make the top ten of readers of print or online press of the groups surveyed, although consumption has slightly increased in both areas over the past 4 years. When asked how much time they spend reading printed or online press during a typical day, UK residents responded that they spent an average of 40 minutes reading printed press and 31 minutes reading online press.

This is an increase of 7 minutes for printed press since 2014 and an increase of just 2 minutes for online press.

In conclusion, all areas of consumption – whether traditional or digital – have increased except for linear (broadcast) TV.

We highly recommend that you go to www.globalwebindex.co.uk to download the full report, as there are further interesting figures based on age and multiple regions of the world.