Total Minutes of TV Watched

IBISWorld forecasts the average amount of time that Australians spend watching television each day to drop by 0.8% in 2024-25 to 100.7 minutes. The amount of daily time spent watching both free-to-air and pay television programs is expected to slip in 2024. Changes in real household disposable income correlate with heightened spending on entertainment like pay television. The rising prevalence of remote working since the onset of the pandemic has allowed more time for consumers to lean into pay television services. However, the pandemic has accelerated the uptake of digital services, marking a permanent shift, including those competing with television for consumers’ time, including streaming services like Netflix and Stan and social media platforms. YouTube and TikTok, in particular, had an immense, consistent uptake in recent years, with Australians aged 16 to 64 on Android having an average daily usage of close to one and a half hours on the platform per day, according to Meltwater, a leader in social media market research. It has ultimately been the convenience and accessibility of these SVOD and social media services that have continued to eat away at the demand for traditional television.

The time Australians spend watching television each day has faltered over the past five years. The introduction of US-based SVOD provider Netflix into the Australian market in March 2015 has provided viewers with a low-cost alternative to pay-TV provider Foxtel. Netflix and its local competitor Stan have also affected the market for commercial free-to-air operators Seven, Nine and Ten. Amazon Prime Video launched in Australia in December 2016 and Disney Plus entered the Australian market in November 2019, intensifying competition. Foxtel also launched its streaming app Binge in May 2020 to offset the negative impact of streaming services on demand for its services. Older demographics are the largest consumers of television. These consumers have been slower in adopting new technologies like SVOD. In addition, retired consumers spend more time at home and watch more television compared with working consumers.