YouTube ‘first port of call’ for many kids when picking up TV remote, Ofcom says

YouTube is the most popular first destination for kids when they switch on the TV set, with one in five children heading straight to the video-sharing platform, a new report from UK media regulator Ofcom shows.

Ed Leighton

The migration of youngsters to digital media at the expense of traditional terrestrial TV continues to gather pace, with Ofcom claiming that “scheduled TV is increasingly alien to younger viewers.”

The company’s annual Media Nations UK 2025 report, which analyses evolving consumer behaviours and key trends, also indicates that fewer than half of 16- to 24-year-olds watch broadcaster content on a weekly basis.

While the emergence of YouTube as one of the world’s most popular sources of content consumption is led by younger-skewing audiences, older demographics are starting to catch up. Over-55s have now doubled their time on the service, for instance.

Ed Leighton, interim group director for strategy and research at Ofcom, said: “Scheduled TV is increasingly alien to younger viewers, with YouTube the first port of call for many when they pick up the TV remote. But we’re also seeing signs that older adults are turning to the platform as part of their daily media diet too.

“Public service broadcasters are recognising this shift, moving to meet audiences in the online spaces where they increasingly spend their time. But we need to see even more ambition in this respect to ensure that public service media that audiences value survives long into the future.”

Published today, Ofcom’s survey makes depressing reading for the embattled public service broadcaster (PSB) sector and comes hot on the heels of last week’s report Transmission Critical: The Future of Public Service Media.

In that 65-page document, Ofcom called for “urgent action” to give PSB content more prominence on platforms such as YouTube, calling broadcasters like the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and 5 an “endangered species” in the era of social media and streaming TV.

Today’s Media Nations review reveals that UK viewers spent an average of four-and-a-half hours per day watching TV and video content at home in 2024.

While broadcast TV still accounts for most in-home viewing (56%), audiences are increasingly turning to YouTube. Now that the platform has become a fixture on living room TV sets, it is the second most-watched service in the UK, behind the BBC and ahead of ITV.

Viewers spent 39 minutes on YouTube per day in 2024, 16 minutes of this via the household’s TV set. Younger adults, aged 16-34, are driving the trend, watching 18 minutes of YouTube a day on TV, while one in five (20%) children aged 4-15 head straight to the app as soon as they turn the set on.

Over-55s watched 11 minutes of YouTube per day in December 2024, up from just six minutes in January 2023. Last year, 42% of all YouTube viewing by this age group was on a TV set, up from 33% in 2023.

While people tend to associate YouTube with snackable shortform content, the Media Nations report suggests that this too is changing, saying: “Half of the platform’s top-trending videos now more closely resemble traditional TV, including longform interviews and gameshows.

“This shift positions YouTube as a direct competitor to ad-supported TV services, while offering broadcasters a way to reach wider and younger audiences.”

The report reveals that some PSBs are seeing success with their streaming platforms, especially the BBC with iPlayer. For the first time, viewers are watching more online shows from broadcasters than recorded programmes.

Overall, viewers spent 4% less time watching linear TV in 2024 than the previous year, with average viewing dropping to two hours 24 minutes a day on TV sets.

In related news, London-based media database Caretta Research has announced new data that it says shows “quick action” is required, with streaming set to take a significant share of revenue from traditional broadcast and pay TV between 2024 and 2029.

The report’s findings reveal that broadcast and pay TV are expected to lose US$42bn in global revenue, while streaming is expected to grow by US$93bn (41%) by the end of the decade.

At the same time, traditional TV household penetration is in decline, while broadband penetration is rising, signalling a need for broadcasters to accelerate their streaming strategies.

Dan Simmons, research director at Caretta Research, said: “Broadcast and streaming are both huge opportunities in the next five years and successful strategies need to address both audiences.

“Recent content sharing and cross-promotion deals between ITV and Disney, and TF1 and Netflix, show how broadcasters and streamers are starting to think outside their own apps to achieve this. These deals also put further pressure on pay TV operators’ role as content aggregators.”