Digital boost as TV turns on viewers for more hours a day

DESPITE the increased popularity of computer games and the internet, television still claims the nation's attention, with viewers watching more than four hours a day.

Figures released by the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board show average daily viewing in the first three months of this year rose to four hours and 18 minutes, up from three hours and 56 minutes in the same period last year. That means viewers spent a day and a quarter out of every week just watching TV.

The figures, which only include shows viewed as they were broadcast or recordings watched – without fast-forwarding – within seven days, show almost two-thirds of those hours (62 per cent) were spent watching commercial channels.

Commercial TV accounted for 18 hours and 29 minutes of weekly viewing, or two hours and 38 minutes a day, up an hour a week on last year. The number of adverts which the average viewer watches each day also rose, from 45 to 48.

Commercial TV marketing body Thinkbox said the rise was partly down to cash-strapped Britons staying home more often. A spokesman said a rise in the number of households with digital television (93.9 per cent) meant viewers had a greater choice of channels and almost half (44 per cent) now have digital TV recorders.

Thinkbox chief executive Tess Alps said: "Anyone who doubted the continuing importance and popularity of broadcast TV in the UK should, hopefully, be convinced by these new figures.

"However, record levels are unlikely to continue. We are nearing the peak, if we are not there already.

"Once analogue signals are finally turned off in 2012, the figures are likely to stabilise."