Five charts that show how TV and video consumption in Australia changed in 2024

Every year ACMA releases the ‘Communications and media in Australia: How we watch and listen to content report’. The challenge for ACMA (and everyone else) is the report manages to slip through year after year almost completely unnoticed.

2024’s report was released in silence in mid December last year. And it contains a tonne of really interesting year on year and time series based information on how we watch TV, use the internet and use our phones.

Here are the five most interesting findings from this year's data in terms of user changes from 2023 to 2024.

One: More than half of the population are using YouTube and Netflix to watch content in the last 7 days.

• Both YouTube and Netflix have seen 10% growth year on year in viewer volume.

• Amazon Prime was the largest single percentage gain year on year

• All services saw increases in user volume over a 7 day period

Two: ABC iView is the leading BVOD service by user volume, with 7Plus and Nine Now declining year on year on 7 day viewer volume

• ABC saw the largest growth, with 62% of people who watched free to air catch up TV in the last 7 days using ABC iview.

• SBS also saw growth, as did 10.

• 7 and 9 for total audience over 7 days, declined.

Three: Free to air linear TV saw its largest drop with 35-44, with 30% of 35-44 watching FTA linear TV over the 7 day measured period

• The 35-44 demographic continued to increase viewer numbers in paid streaming and BVOD

• Pay TV continues to trend down at a similar rate to the last 5 years

• User generated/short form video (i.e. TikTok) is now the second largest viewing format by volume for 35-44

• 35-44 viewing trends resemble closely the <35 cohorts

Four: For 35-44 demographic, 7Plus and 9Now are seeing the best sustained growth rate

• 35-44 is emerging as a key growth demographic for streaming TV

• 9Now and 7Plus saw declines in 7 day volume for 45-54 in 2024, but increases in 35-44

• 55-64 also saw strong increases for 7 and 9 in BVOD year on year

Five: The 35-44 audience now spend more time watching catch-up BVOD than linear

• In 2024 the 35-44 demographic spent 1.7 hours a week on average watching BVOD, and 1.5 hours a week watching linear

• The challenge on 35-44 is increasing the total TV pie - according to ACMA 35-44 in total watched 4 hours of TV a week in June of 2023, in June of 2024 this was 3.2 hours

• For 25-34 total TV weekly consumption was 2.4 hours (compared with 2.6 hours in 2023) and for 45-54 this was 7.7 hours in 2024 (compared with 8.8 in 2023)

• 35-44 is emerging as a key growth demographic for streaming TV

• 9Now and 7Plus saw declines in 7 day volume for 45-54 in 2024, but increases in 35-44

• 55-64 also saw strong increases for 7 and 9 in BVOD year on year

The numbers around 35-44 are critical in my view as this is an age bracket that has grown up with the internet and is the segment that had the earliest adoption of streaming and short form video. (this age group would have been between 20-30 when YouTube became mass, Instagram emerged, early VPN Netflix adoption etc) and the big question is whether as they age what form their consumption takes. What this audience does it really central to the longer term survival of incumbent TV formats.

The report is worth a look in full, you can find it on the ACMA website if you try hard enough (I won’t link to it here as otherwise LI will ensure this piece generates no exposure as it appears to punish external linking).