Daily Mail

Soaps are on the ropes

TV audiences fall as we ditch old favourites

- By Emily Kent Smith Media and Technology Reporter

SOAPS are becoming less popular with viewers which has led to an overall decline in British television audience figures, Ofcom has found.

In a report released today, the regulator warned that although broadcast television is still attracting ‘millions of simultaneo­us viewers’, the size of audiences for the ‘most popular programmes has been falling’.

The most popular soaps saw a big slump in the number of people watching. In 2007, EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale averaged 8.7 million viewers between them, but by 2017 this had fallen 20 per cent to 6.9 million.

It comes as the independen­t watchdog revealed public service broadcaste­rs are spending less money on British content despite repeated warnings that it draws people to the likes of the BBC and

ITV rather than pushing them on to US platforms such as Netflix. In a warning to British broadcaste­rs, Ofcom’s chief executive Sharon White said: ‘ Today’s research finds what we watch and how we watch it are changing rapidly, which has profound implicatio­ns for UK television.’ In Ofcom’s Media Nations report the regulator warns that ‘ the decreasing popularity of soaps is driving the overall decline’. A decade ago in 2007, 191 programmes attracted a consolidat­ed audience of more than ten million viewers. In 2017, this was only true for 64.

The number of shows with an audience of more than eight million also plummeted – from 634 in 2007 to 201 last year. Just four individual episodes attracted audiences of over ten million in 2017.

It comes as programmes such as The Crown on Netflix saw an explosion in viewers. The US giant, as well as Google- owned YouTube, are heavily investing in creating original content – some with British influence.

A dwindling interest in entertainm­ent shows such as The X Factor has also had an impact on the overall numbers of mass audience programmes, Ofcom found.

Despite millions being poured into the ITV show last year, not a single episode attracted more than eight million viewers.

Viewers are also sick of seeing and hearing offensive content on the box, the report found. Almost a fifth of people said they had found something offensive on television in the past year, including sex, nudity and violence.

A third of adults told Ofcom they feel there is too much violence and too much swearing on TV.

Asked how they reacted, almost half said they switched channels. One in five turned off their TV altogether, while just 17 per cent carried on watching.

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