back to article TV tax takers reveal Brits telly habits

Britons now spend more time watching TV programmes after they have been broadcast. And more than a quarter of us watch TV on mobile devices, TV Licensing, the organisation that collects the Licence Fee, a television tax, said this week. Brits together own more flat-panel tellies than any other Western European nation, even …

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  2. Danny 14
    Happy

    heh

    These stats would be far more skewed if gathered from theregister readers on here :) In our house we have 4 PCs (2 mothballed but still they "probably" work), 3 laptops, 2 tablets and 5 smartphones (Im sure the old LG 520 is still technically a smartphone, it runs CM afterall!). One TV.

    1. Mike007 Bronze badge

      Re: heh

      Although that is probably countered slightly by the larger than average number of single person households amongst the readership...

  3. Lee Dowling Silver badge

    Yay

    Not one single program listed in the top 10's did I watch. Fabulous to know how well TV is catering to my needs over the last three years (and equally how less sad I am than about 90% of the population).

    And, really, is anyone shocked? Everything increases except for B&W license figures (and how many of them are ACTUALLY only B&W viewers?) and 3D has a very slow death ahead of it. You don't need to be Mystic Meg to forsee those statistics, really.

    Even the gender of iPlayer viewers - at first mostly male, now 50-50.

    Not so much a researched report as just stating the bleeding obvious, really.

    1. Citizen Kaned

      Re: Yay

      i THINK if you are registered blind or partially sighted you can have a B&W license.

  4. Captain Hogwash
    Holmes

    Jumping to conclusions

    "Brits together own more flat-panel tellies than any other Western European nation, even those with bigger populations, such as Germany"

    Could this be because we live in much smaller houses than most of our European neighbours and are therefore in more of a hurry to ditch the space hogging CRTs?

    "Size remains a key buying factor: more than two-thirds of the TVs bought in 2011 were smaller than 33in."

    Hmmmm. It's looking quite likely.

    "We're a conservative lot: only nine per cent of punters say they will opt for a larger size than they currently own"

    Clearly it's not about being conservative then. Please read your own article before jumping to such conclusions.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Jumping to conclusions

      Maybe it was the timing of Digital Switchover compared to the quality of new LCD TVs and the age of old CRT sets?

      In a country where DSO happened before ours, where people were happy with their old tubes and unimpressed by expensive shoddy early flat panels, they're more likely to just buy a cheapo add-on box and keep the telly.

      With more recent DSO (like London), people will be more likely to give in a buy a new one.

      I've just been through DSO and bought convertor set-top boxes because I loved the picture of my lounge CRT, and don't want to replace the kids' tellies. Only when the main set went ByeBye did I look again at new tellies, and got one (online for half the price of the local shop) that I'm delighted with (37" LED edge-lit). It was one of the few in the shop where the colours looked natural, standard def was well handled, the viewing angles were OK, etc).

      Glad I didn't go bigger, you can start to see the imperfections if I move forwards in my chair... I got the size just right for me!

    2. Graham 32

      Re: Jumping to conclusions

      And my interpretation of "Size remains a key buying factor" was really "cost remains a key buying factor". Sure I'd love a 60" behemoth to hang on the wall, but I don't watch enough TV to justify the cost.

  5. Oor Nonny-Muss
    FAIL

    Those statistics are backwards surely?

    In 2007 there were 2.17 TVs per house, now 2.34 - an increase of 0.17 (normal to take the datum as the original value is it not, rather than the final value?) an 8% increase not 7%

    Look at the smartphone - was 0.28, now 0.77 - an increase of 0.49 (from a start point of 0.28) - I make that 175% increase... not 64%

    Similarly tablet 0.18 to 0.33 - that would be an 83% increase not 45% & Laptop 0.95 to 1.51 - (59% not 37%)

  6. Tom 38

    Numbers don't make sense

    I'm aware that Apple did not invent the tablet form factor, however their infographic showing kit penetration rates 5 years ago and today show 0.18 tablets per houehold 5 years ago, and 0.33 per household now - check the report, it is chopped off on the version on the register.

    It doesn't make sense to me. I know there were windows tablets back then, but people actually had them in sufficient quantity that they turned up on a TV licensing/ICM survey? As a rough estimate, 24.5 million households pay the TV license, and they expect us to believe that in 2007 there were approximately 4.4 million tablets in the UK? BS.

  7. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    Disgusting

    Not only the sad bastards watch crap on TV but they also watch it on their phones!

    1. TRT Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Disgusting

      Hmm... so, in order to get the number one spot... Britain's Talent's Got The Strictly Dancing On Ice Factor On A Phone.

      This time next year, Rodders...

  8. JetSetJim
    Stop

    Just more ammo..

    for them converting the telly tax into a "you pay if you stream/download any video content from a broadcaster, even if it's after the show was scheduled (i.e. non real time viewing)".

  9. Toby Rose
    Holmes

    A Quarter?

    More than a quarter (even) watch TV on a mobile device!! The only way that can possibly be true is if the surveyors have mistranslated 'portable' for 'mobile' and then included the smartphone/tablet users who would gladly eat up their battery lifespan watching mostly drivel.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hardly surprising

    Even if I didn't have a job that involved travel for weeks at a time and catching up when I get home, I would still be recording most of the things I watch and actually watching when convenient for me. The PVR and internet catch up services have been most useful in this respect. The top ten list of most watched programmes wasn't pleasant viewing though!

  11. Buzzword

    Most-started programmes != most-watched programmes

    I started watching an episode of Come Fly With Me on iPlayer once. I never made it to the end because it was so awful. Do their stats include people like me who thought "oh this looks promising" and started watching a show, but then never made it to the end? I'd quite like to see a list of top-ten shows that people actually managed to sit through.

  12. Andy 115

    Won't somebody think of the "lost" revenue!

    25 million licences, yet 26.5 million households watched the royal wedding :-o

  13. TRT Silver badge
    Holmes

    I've seen people...

    consuming digital media on their iPads, iPhones etc and wondered why? Why would one want to watch a film on the train with people jostling you to get past (because you've not noticed someone fidgeting as you approach their station), the screen rocking all over the place, the sun reflecting off the screen at a crucial moment... No, I'd far rather wait until I got in, could shut the curtains if the sun was a nuisance, settle down in my comfy chair with a cup of tea and a bag of crisps / plate of food, turn the surround amp on, and then watch ST:TNG or whatever it was. I mean, isn't that just doing the programme makers a courtesy, making sure you can concentrate on their programme making? And what about the tiny details in the background of a crime drama? The time on the clock on the mantlepiece and the half-empty wine glass? Watch it on an iPhone and during the detective's reveal you would be going, "Eh? What mantlepiece? I didn't even see the fireplace."

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Boffin

      @TRT

      Why would you want to watch it on the move? If you've not got much free time and loss of picture quality is worth it if the alternative is never seeing it.

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: @TRT

        @Dan 55

        I think I'd reassess my time-management if that were the case. If I never saw a programme, I don't think it would be life threatening. If I wanted to watch it that much, I'd make time to. I never count a commute as 'otherwise wasted time' because I watch the people, watch the world, look out of the window.

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge
          Joke

          Re: @TRT

          Watch the world and look out of the window?

          Crazy, you're wasting that TV licence.

  14. Pete 2 Silver badge

    HAVE, not "do"

    > 39 per cent of us watched TV on a handset during 2011

    What the report actually said was "39% of households have watched TV on a smartphone" (and 14% _have_ watched TV on a tablet). Though the report's analysis is on very shaky ground: claiming that the first "smartphone" came out in 1993.

    That does not give me the impression that over 1/3rd of househoulds have members sitting around watching all their TV on a tiny little screen - while the honkin' great flat-panel sits, ignored, in the corner. It sounds to me that people do, sometimes, squint their way through a programme when there isn't any better way of viewing it.

  15. James 100

    "Most of these folk would have been watching catch-up services, such as BBC iPlayer, on their mobile devices. Catch-up viewing accounted for 9.2 per cent of all viewing in 2011, up from 7.1 per cent in 2010."

    That must be the bit which scares the ... out of them: they can only collect tax on real-time broadcast viewing, on-demand content is beyond their remit. I could easily swap my current 32" LCD TV (already hooked up to a computer anyway) for a second-hand 30" and stick to downloaded/streamed content: no more TV tax needed, so the savings alone would just about cover the monitor price...

  16. Robredz
    FAIL

    And why are the BBC releasing this? Must be they want to extend the TV Tax onto catch up, and anything with a screen. TV licence for your smart toaster sir/madam?

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