Broadcasters in Wales remain popular while audiences embrace new platforms

• Content from Wales’ public service broadcasters remains highly valued despite proliferation of content providers
• Viewers in Wales remain the second largest consumers of broadcast TV in any of the nations
• BBC One (38%) and ITV Wales (28%) are still the first and second most-used sources for news about the nation
• Smart speakers and smartphones see growth in use for listening to radio. Analogue and DAB remained the most popular platforms for radio listening Q1 2023

Despite ever-increasing competition from global streaming services, the public service broadcasters (PSBs) in Wales continue to provide content that is highly valued by viewers, according to Ofcom’s latest annual report on the TV, online video, radio and audio sectors.

Media Nations Wales 2023 finds that three-quarters (75%) of those who watched content from the PSBs in Wales – BBC, ITV, S4C, Channel 4 and Channel 5 – said that the broadcasters performed well on providing ‘a wide range of different types of programmes, such as drama, comedy, entertainment or sport.’ This figure is higher than in any other nation in the UK.

Public service broadcasters succeed in bringing the nation together

Public perception of the public service broadcast channels remains positive, with seven in ten viewers in Wales (69%) saying they were satisfied with them overall. This figure is consistent with the UK average. A similar percentage of viewers (68%) recognised the contribution of these broadcasters in delivering ‘programmes that help me understand what is going on in the world today.’

Programmes produced by the public service broadcasters, live sport and special events, in particular, dominated the list of most-watched programmes in 2022. Not surprisingly, given Wales’ love of rugby, Wales’ Six Nations Rugby match versus France was the most watched programme with an average audience of 652,000. The State Funeral of HM Queen Elizabeth II held the second position with 624,000 viewers and the FIFA World Cup at number three with 612,000 viewers.

Viewers continue to turn to content from our broadcasters

Although viewers in Wales watched more content from streaming services delivered over the internet such as Netflix and Disney+ than viewers in any other nation in 2022, 61% of their time was spent watching content produced by traditional broadcasters – which includes live TV, recorded TV and broadcaster video-on-demand such as BBC iPlayer, ITVX and S4C Clic.

With broadcasters digitalising their services to meet audiences’ changing needs, use of their video-on-demand services, such as BBC iPlayer and ITVX, continues to grow. BBC iPlayer was the most popular streaming service in Wales at 73%, followed by All 4 (48%) and ITVX, which launched during 2022 at 45%.

The viewing of broadcast television on the TV set continues to decline across the whole of the UK. Wales is no exception, with total consumption declining from 3 hours and 8 minutes per day in 2021 to 2 hours and 45 minutes per day in 2022. This decline is in line with the UK average decrease, and still leaves viewers in Wales the second largest consumers of broadcast TV in any of the nations.

There is a stark difference between the amount of broadcast TV watched on a television set by viewers of different ages. While over-54s watched an average of 4 hours 58 minutes per day – more than any other age group – children aged 4-15 watched only 43 minutes per day, the least of any age group.

Despite the proliferation of news sources BBC One (38%) and ITV Wales (28%) were the first and second most-used sources for news about the nation. They were followed by Facebook (25%) and the BBC website/app (13%), while other online sources were used by fewer than 10% for this purpose.

When it comes to news in general over half of adults in Wales (55%) used BBC One, making it the most-used news source, followed by ITV Wales (40%). Social media ranked highly too, with Facebook the third most popular source of news (37%), while Twitter (20%) and Instagram (18%) ranked seventh and eighth respectively. BBC Radio 2 was the top radio station cited (14%). No newspapers made the top ten.

Radio retains its popularity with listeners in Wales

Radio remains a popular source of content for listeners in Wales with 87% of adults tuning in each week. Many of those who do listen, do so for nearly an hour and a half longer (21 hours and 48 minutes – compared to the UK average of 20 hours 24 minutes.

Most of the listening in Wales continues to be to BBC radio services which account for 56.7% of all listening. This compares with 46.4% across the UK. The share of listening to UK-wide local commercial services in Wales is 22.7% compared to 19.4% for local commercial services.

Listening to radio online continues to grow in popularity as smartphones, smart speakers and other online devices account for 14.2% of all radio listening in Wales. However, most listening is accounted for by DAB (35.6%) and AM/FM (36.5%) platforms.

The gap between the availability of UK-wide BBC DAB services (92.2%) and local commercial DAB services (82.6%) continues. The difference is particularly marked on major roads where local commercial DAB services are only available on 60.9% of roads in Wales compared to UK-wide BBC DAB services which are available on 78.1% of major roads.

Notes to editors.

1. The figures quoted for broadcast TV are for 28-day consolidated viewing on a TV set. Consolidated viewing includes viewing of programmes at the time they were broadcast (live viewing) as well as from recordings on digital video recorders (DVRs) and through online broadcaster video-on-demand (BVoD) services (e.g. BBC iPlayer, ITVX and Sky Go/Sky TV On Demand) up to 28 days after the first broadcast (time-shifted).

   Weekly reach is defined as the percentage of all individuals aged 4+ watching 15 consecutive minutes or more in an average week.

2. Figures for reach of radio, average hours, share of radio listening on smart speakers and reach of podcasts relate to RAJAR Q1 2023. These were the most recent at time of writing. RAJAR data for Q2 2023 will be released on Thursday 3 August.

3. Top ten most-watched programmes in Wales, highest performing episode per title: 2022