UK viewers still love BBC and ITV
At first glance Issue 664’s news story (page 7) on changing TV habits suggests the public are falling out of love with BBC and ITV. But on closer inspection it’s more likely that it’s the viewing habits that are changing, and that our affection for these traditional channels remains strong.
For example, while the number of hours watching broadcast TV has fallen sharply, a lot of that viewing has switched to BBC iPlayer and ITVX. What’s changed is that hardly anyone assumes that you need to watch a programme at the precise time that it’s broadcast.
In some ways, these ‘catch-up’ services are simply modern equivalents of video recorders. Back in the 1980s I used to work late evenings, and would often set my timer to record shows like Blackadder, Question Time and anything that David Attenborough presented. Looking back, what was that if not a forerunner of ‘catch-up’ TV?
Geoff Salcombe
It’s not surprising that the number of viewers watching news bulletins has