The likes of Sky (SKY), BT (BT.A) and ITV (ITV) will be heartened by the findings of Ofcom's latest Communications Market Report. The telecoms regulator highlighted growing UK adoption of smartphones and rising consumption of digital media in 2015, and may help to relieve worries about television and radio demand.
Ofcom surveyed UK consumers about their use of landline and mobile telephony, television, radio, on-demand video and postal services. It found the average UK adult spent eight hours and 45 minutes a day using media and communications services last year - longer than he or she slept each night. The proportion of UK adults who own a smartphone swelled from 66 to 71 per cent, while more than a quarter logged on to paid, on-demand services such as Netflix and Amazon Instant Video each week, up from 18 per cent in 2014. The growing appetite for digital content bodes well for ITV Player, Sky Store and other platforms. The trade-off was that the proportion of people who tuned in to live television and radio each week dipped to around 90 per cent.
Take-up of bundled services