Ofcom: in the UK, those aged 15-24 spent 57 minutes/day on TikTok in 2021, compared to 53 minutes/day watching TV; those 65 or over spent six hours watching TV
Ofcom survey points to challenges for traditional broadcasters in keeping pace with digital and streaming trends Source: Ofcom .
Financial TimesAlex Barker
Context & Ripple Effects
Ofcom’s viewing comparison fits a broader UK attention shift already visible in TikTok’s higher monthly Android usage than YouTube in the UK. It puts traditional television and TikTok on opposite sides of a sharp age divide: younger adults are allocating more daily time to the short-video service, while over-65s remain heavily concentrated in TV viewing.
The finding matters beyond entertainment because Ofcom had also identified TikTok as a fast-growing news source among UK adults. Later Ofcom research placed TikTok at the top of the news-source ranking for UK 12- to 15-year-olds, extending the evidence that younger audiences’ media habits are moving onto social video.
First-order effects
TikTok gains a clear audience-attention benchmark against television among UK 15- to 24-year-olds, while traditional broadcasters confront weaker daily viewing time in that cohort.
Ofcom’s data makes the broadcasters’ age-profile problem explicit: their strongest viewing base is the 65-plus audience, not the younger group central to TikTok’s growth.
Second-order effects
Broadcasters competing for younger viewers must contend with TikTok not only as an entertainment service but as a distribution environment whose role in news use is expanding.
Advertisers seeking younger UK audiences have a stronger case to compare TV reach with TikTok time spent, increasing pressure on broadcasters to demonstrate the value of their younger-viewer inventory.
Third-order effects
If these age-separated habits persist, UK video and news markets will become more segmented: television serves an older viewing base while social-video platforms become a primary attention gateway for younger people.
The pattern strengthens the case for platform-focused news and media measurement, because audience behavior increasingly crosses the boundary between broadcasters and social platforms.
The trend: UK media consumption is shifting toward a generational split in which social-video platforms capture younger audiences’ time while television remains anchored among older viewers.
TikTok is TV.... Britons aged 15-24 spend an average of 57 minutes a day watching TikTok. More time than they spend watching all traditional TV broadcasts. Meanwhile old people continue to bloody love broadcast TV and watch enormous amounts of it. (Source: Ofcom) https://twitter.…
📺Young adults aged 15-24 spend an average of 57 minutes a day watching TikTok.... ...More time than they spend watching ALL traditional TV broadcasts 📺Young adults watch 7x LESS broadcast TV than people aged 65+ https://www.ft.com/...
UK's young adults spend more time on TikTok than watching TV 📱Young adults spend almost an hour on TikTok every day 📱YouTube & FB remain most popular social video platforms https://twitter.com/...
I never know where Ofcom gets their data from (I'm guessing it's self-reported or something) but TikTok's internal data shows the average user spends way more (50% more) time than this on the app every day, so yes, it is hyyyyyuge https://twitter.com/...
The addictive power of the algorithm. It should b regulated-UK's young adults spending more time on TikTok than watching TV. Ofcom survey points to challenges for traditional broadcasters in keeping pace with digital and streaming trends. https://www.ft.com/...
🇬🇧 Young Brits watch 7 times less broadcast TV than people over 65, according to @Ofcom. Here's the percentage of 15 to 17-year-olds watching short-form videos on every platform: 🔴93% on @YouTube 🟤90% on @Instagram ⚫️73% on TikTok https://www.bbc.com/...
Fascinating report on UK social media habits from @ofcom: 📱35% of adults and 66% of 15-24s use TikTok ⌚Young adults spend almost an hour on TikTok each day 📺 YouTube and Facebook remain the largest social video platforms https://twitter.com/...