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Barb: Live TV viewing remains substantial in UK
Barb, the audience measurement
specialist, has published a firsttime
report entitled What People
Watched in 2025.
The report explores how
people in the UK watched their
favourite television show last
year. It covers live and ondemand
, linear and streaming
viewing for broadcasters,
streamers and video-sharing
platforms.
The findings include:
• Live viewing remains a
substantial part of viewing,
even for younger audiences.
In December 2025, viewing
live was 45 % of total identified
viewing on the TV set.
• Programmes with large live
audiences in 2025 included
sporting events like the
BBC and ITV’ s coverage of
the Women’ s Euros final,
entertainment shows such as
BBC One’ s Celebrity Traitors
and comfort TV like Channel
4’ s Gogglebox.
• On-demand streaming, via
broadcasters’ VoD services,
streamers or video-sharing
platforms, accounted for 38 %
of viewing in 2025. A large
proportion of viewing last
year on the UK’ s three biggest
streamers – Prime Video,
Disney + and Netflix – was to
content available for more
than 12 months, reflecting
the importance of large library
catalogues.
• The most-used TV
navigation platforms in 2025
were Freeview, Sky and smart
TV EPGs, with YouTube
coming in fourth. Viewers
were most likely to turn first
to the top ten TV channels
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after switching the TV set on,
with 37 % of viewing sessions
starting with one of them.
Netflix was the most popular
first port of call for young
adults, accounting for 26
per cent of TV set switchons
among 16 – 34-year-olds,
while the same proportion
of 4 – 15-year-old children‘ s
viewing sessions started with
YouTube.
Barb’ s independent data show
that the TV set has become the
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most-used device for people
to watch YouTube through
their domestic WiFi networks.
While use of the TV set to watch
YouTube is growing among all
age groups, viewing is skewed
towards children aged 4-15,
who accounted for a quarter of
YouTube TV-set viewing in 2025
but only one-seventh of the UK
population.
Justin Sampson, Chief
Executive at Barb, commented:
“ Commentary about television
is too often based on a
binary premise that ignores a
more complex reality. Barb’ s
independent evidence points
to a world in which viewing is
defined more by adaptation
than disruption. The prognosis
is more connected, nuanced
and resilient than the clichés
and partial viewpoints suggest.
Live audiences are healthy,
children and young people
haven’ t deserted linear services,
and there’ s an increasingly
symbiotic relationship between
all services and platforms in the
TV ecosystem.”
Analysis: Europe’ s 5G driven by Austria, Spain, UK, France
The second edition of Ookla and
Omdia’ s report on the global
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state of 5G Standalone confirms that the technology has moved beyond launch announcements into an execution-driven phase. By the close of 2025, the‘ coverage gap’ between major economic blocs had narrowed, but a more consequential‘ capability gap’ has emerged, reflecting divergent spectrum strategies, investment depth, and the extent to which operators have moved beyond baseline SA deployment toward end-to-end network optimisation.
Globally, 5G SA availability based on Speedtest sample share reached 17.6 % in Q4 2025, up modestly from 16.2 % a year earlier, indicating that roughly one in six 5G Speedtests worldwide now occurs on a standalone network. The headline global median SA download speed of 269.51 Mbps represents a 52 % premium over nonstandalone networks, though this figure masks significant regional variation driven by spectrum allocation depth, carrier aggregation maturity, and userplane engineering. Further key takeaways include:
• Europe’ s 5G SA sample share more than doubled from 1.1 % to 2.8 % between Q4 2024 and Q4 2025.
• The acceleration was driven by Austria( 8.7 %), Spain( 8.3 %), UK( 7 %), and France( 5.9 %), with these countries accounting for the vast majority of European SA connections.
• However, the region still trails North America by 27 percentage points and emerging Asia by 30 percentage points.
• Median download speeds of 205 Mbps on European SA networks, while 45 % faster than NSA, remain the lowest among major developed regions. From a global perspective:
• North America leads in 5G SA adoption acceleration: its SA share grew from 8.2 % in Q1 2023 to 29.9 % in Q4 2025.
• Asia leads in 5G availability: China continues to dominate with 80.9 % 5G SA sample share and over 10m 5G
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Advanced subscribers.
The GCC has established itself
as the global 5G SA performance
leader: it delivers the world’ s
fastest 5G SA download speeds at
1.13 Gbps median
Spain: Streaming revenues overtake traditional broadcasters
Streaming platforms in Spain
have surpassed traditional
television operators in revenue
for the first time, according to
the Entertainment and Media
Outlook 2025 – 2029 report by
Price Waterhouse Cooper( PwC),
cited by Dircom. Advertising has
played a pivotal role in driving
the shift
In 2025, streaming services
such as Prime Video, Disney + and
Netflix generated € 3.58 billion in
Spain, outpacing the € 3.35 billion
( a 3 per cent decline) recorded by
conventional television groups.
The milestone reflects a profound
transformation in the country’ s
audiovisual market, accelerated
by the recent introduction of
advertising tiers on subscriptionbased
platforms.
Until recently, streaming
companies relied almost
exclusively on subscriber
revenues. However, the rollout
of ad-supported models has
significantly boosted their
growth. The trend stands in stark
contrast to that of traditional
broadcasters, where declining
audiences are weighing heavily
on advertising income.
Revenues in the conventional
television sector are split almost
evenly between subscriptions
– including services such as
Movistar Plus and Orange TV –
which contributed € 1.74 billion,
and advertising, which accounted
for € 1.61 billion. Both avenues
are contracting: subscription
income fell by 1 %, while
advertising dropped by more
than 5 %. PwC forecasts that both
lines of business will continue to
decline through to 2029, the final
year covered in its projections.
The picture is markedly
different for OTT platforms.
Subscription revenues rose
by 16 % to € 3.17 billion, while
advertising income— though still
comparatively modest at € 357
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