Brits will spend a whopping NINE YEARS of their lives glued to the TV – five times as long as they spend having sex, playing sport and shopping combined*.
That’s the finding of a new study which also reveals that British adults will spend over three years watching repeats and ‘rubbish’ TV’ despite the choice offered by video on demand services like blinkbox or broadcasters’ own catch up services.
The survey of 2000 British adults by movie and TV streaming service blinkbox, which boasts the latest movie and TV releases without subscription, reveals that family life in Britain today now centres around the humble sofa rather than the kitchen table. Indeed the average adult confesses to watching three and a half hours of TV per day, amounting to nine years across an adult lifetime*.
Alarmingly, two thirds (67%) of Brits say their everyday lives are like the movie ‘Groundhog Day’ where life is set on repeat – these figures are supported by the fact that we watch an average of four hours of repeats every week amounting to sixteen months of repeat viewing across a lifetime*.
The majority of British adults (53%) admit that they have seen some movies and TV shows so often they can recite actors’ lines verbatim. These figures will no doubt rise sharply at Christmas when nearly half of us (49%) will sit through twenty five hours of repeats over a 10 day period.
The sofa is the place where the majority (60%) of family arguments take place, symptomatic, perhaps, of the fact that the majority of Brits (51%) sit through seven hours’ worth of programming they don’t like every week due to conflicting family choices.
As the recession continues to bite, over 60% of us admit we are increasingly spending ‘date nights’ on the sofa watching a movie to save money, with horror movies our top choice ahead of rom-coms for a ‘romantic night in’.
Further findings suggest that as a nation we are increasingly multi-tasking as we watch television, with the average family eating four meals a week in front of the TV. (51% confess to eating a minimum of four TV meals per week)
This is the extraordinary truth of our Sofa Years:
- An average of nine years of our lives watching TV
- Sixteen months spent watching repeats
- Two years spent watching ‘rubbish TV’ (22% of our total viewing classed as ‘rubbish’)
- 54% of us watch TV while surfing the web on a laptop or tablet
- An average of four meals per week spent watching TV, with 10% eating every meal in front of the telly
- 53% of Brits have watched the same shows so often “they can remember most of the words and say them in time with the actors”
The research reveals that our viewing habits peak at Christmas time when the average adult will spend five and a half hours per day watching television, half of which will be repeats*. The findings also reveal that we are creatures of habit, with three quarters (78%) of us making a point to watch the same festive movie every Christmas.
The top five Christmas movies we watch over and over again were revealed as follows:
- Home Alone (28%)
- The Snowman (27%)
- Miracle on 34th Street (26%)
- Elf (20%)
- Love Actually (18%)
Finally, with all that sofa time, the study reveals that 73% of us have a favourite living room seat whilst the average family will get through four sofas across a lifetime.
Ben Ayers, spokesman for blinkbox comments “We spend 15% of our adult lives glued to the TV. Life is too short to spend three years watching repeats and rubbish programming. Half the nation now has access to great content on demand, banishing boring telly to history.”
Regional and gender differentials
The study reveals that the biggest TV addicts reside in the North East, Yorkshire and Wales who average four hours of TV viewing per day. Residents in the North East are also more likely to eat in front of the TV averaging five TV dinners per week. This area also watch the most repeats (17% of total viewing).
When it comes to gender, women watch an average of four hours more TV per week than men, however the sexes disagree when it comes to timeless Christmas movies, with men plumping for ‘Die Hard’ over ‘Love Actually’.
For further information, please email comms@blinkbox.com or call 020 7092 8771
Notes to editors
blinkbox has the latest blockbuster movies to watch instantly the same day as DVD, without subscription. The service offers thousands of titles on a growing number of devices including games consoles (Xbox 360 and PS3), iPad, Smart TVs (LG, Samsung, Technika and Philips), Blu-Ray players (Samsung and LG), Technika set top boxes and PCs/Macs. The service is proud to be part of Tesco and has been voted ‘Best online movie service’ by viewers of Channel 5’s The Gadget Show.
Over 2000 British adults were surveyed by One Poll for the blinkbox study
Adult British lifetime classed as 62 years – 18-80 (average UK life expectancy)
Average of 3.6hrs viewing per day over 62 years = 81,448 hrs = 3,338.52 days = 9.27 years
*we spend an average of 650 days across an adult lifetime shopping, having sex and playing sport combined
blinkbox has moved from digital to physical – by giving away popcorn to its most loyal customers.