The Decline in Broadcast TV: The End of Shared Entertainment Experiences?

Over 7 million people tuned in to watch the final episode of the Traitors last week. Last year, 12.3 million watched the Gavin and Stacey Christmas special live, and Strictly Come Dancing, which had been marred in controversy, still retained an average viewership of 6.4 million during its 20th season.?

However, these stats are not indicative of the broader trend. Consumption of live broadcast TV is in decline. People are watching less TV, and even fewer are watching live TV. Ofcom data last year revealed that 16-24s watch only 20 minutes of live telly per day, whilst spending almost five times as long (1 hour 33 minutes) watching content on video-sharing platforms, such as Tik Tok and YouTube. And it’s not just young people – the decline among middle-aged viewers (45-54s) has also accelerated, with the family TV now being the device of choice to watch YouTube at home.?

This has obvious repercussions for broadcasting organisations such as the BBC. How can they compete with streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+, or Big Tech platforms such as Instagram and TikTok? Not only do these services produce vastly more content, but their entire model is predicated on meeting individualised demands – people can watch what they want, when they want, and how they want. I can choose to watch Friends at 2am on my phone, or TikTok reels at 1pm on my iPad. This demand and provision for flexibility is what the BBC is playing catch-up to, as its fundamental principle rests in the name – broadcasting.?

Yes, the BBC has made impressive efforts to compete in a game which is not really their own. Beyond BBC iPlayer, which has made it possible to watch any of their content after it has been broadcast, their news items have adapted to the social media age, with short-form videos containing quick-fire explanations. This does pander to the demands of binge-watching – you can watch a lot of BBC content on demand. But as a publicly-funded corporation, they struggle to compete with the mammoth streaming services and social media platforms. And how can they justify license fees if people do not want to watch their content?

These trends will impact more than just broadcasters. The decline in live broadcast media consumption is also changing our shared experience of entertainment. As fewer people watch live TV, opportunities to discuss shared experiences around the content we consume are reduced. People still talk about broadcast TV, but the commonality has shifted. The idea of watching a show at the same time as your peers and then discussing it with them suddenly feels rather dated.

This points not just to a decline in shared experience of TV, but also a rise in individualised content, yet another cause of growing social isolation. As people continue to consume such tailored content, their common ground with others is reduced. The sophistication of algorithms means no two accounts show the same content. Given that recent data indicates that we spend one quarter of our whole lives consuming content, it is a shame, to say the least, that this time is also becoming more lonesome. Rather than having conversations where we share our thoughts on shows that are both widely distributed and consumed, our interactions with what we see are increasingly a one-way exchange.?

This hardly calls for a pre-phone and pre-social media age, in which we only consume shared broadcast content. The success of shows such as The Traitors, Gavin and Stacey, and Strictly Come Dancing demonstrate that demand for high quality broadcast TV is still there – it just needs to be given the space and audience to remind us of its value. But with it facing such fierce competition, its future is far from certain.