TV audience measurement platform Broadcasters” Audience Research Board has used its latest monthly bulletin to provide some insights into time-shifted viewing trends.

 

It”s an interesting piece of work, which shows that time-shifted viewing hit an all time high in May 2011. At 9.1% of viewing, it was well up on the 7.1% recorded in May 2010. Go back to January 2007 and it was just 2%.

 

The trends become even more evident when you drill down by demo and genre. By age category, the biggest time-shifters are 25-34 year-olds (who are both tech-savvy and time-pressured). As for socio-economic groups, ABC1s come out on top (possibly because they have greater access to the right kit).

 

BARB”s most interesting area of analysis, however, is programme genre. Here, we see that 20% of all drama viewing is now time-shifted, rising to an incredible 36% when you look at Sky+ homes. More resilient is entertainment, where time-shifted viewing is just 10% (19% in Sky+ homes). This can be explained by editorial and game mechanics designed to encourage live over delayed viewing.

 

BARB doesn”t opine on its figures. But there”s no question that the speed at which audiences are migrating to self-selected schedules will present a significant strategic challenge for producers, schedulers and advertisers over the next five years.