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Adults, who were advised by the government in
late March to stay at home, spent on average six hours and 25
minutes a day watching news and entertainment, Ofcom said, a
rise of almost a third on the same month a year ago.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's announcement on May 10 that
lockdown measures would be eased was the most watched programme
of the year so far, with 18.7 million viewers, while the
imposition of lockdown on March 23 was second with 14.6 million.
Queen Elizabeth's broadcast to the nation was third with 14
million.
When they were not watching news and information about the
pandemic, Britons increasingly turned to video streaming
services for entertainment.
An estimated 12 million adults signed up to a new streaming
service in the first weeks of lockdown, of whom 3 million had
never subscribed to one before, Ofcom said.
Disney+, which was launched by the U.S. entertainment group in
Britain on the first day of lockdown, made an immediate impact,
attracting 16% of online adults by early July to become the
third-ranked service behind Netflix, which had 45%, and Amazon
Prime Video, with 39%.
Traditional broadcasters, led by the publicly funded BBC and its
commercial rival ITV, briefly achieved their highest combined
share of broadcast TV viewing in more than six years in March.
But the boost proved short lived and their share dropped back by
June as the pandemic interrupted the production of soap operas,
major sporting events and entertainment shows, Ofcom said.
(Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by David Holmes)
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