Figure 24: Frequency of watching television
With the predominance of online media consumption during the global pandemic, it was expected that the current declining trend of watching television was further exacerbated during 2021-22. TV watching has been the leading activity in the region for entertainment over the years, with a large majority of nationals reporting watching television programs. Although the declining trend was relatively progressive (with a change of 5 percentage points in the 2014-2018 period for broadcast consumption at all times and 17 percentage points for the same period for once-a-day consumption) the decrease in the 2018- 2021/22 period (14% for consumption at all times and 11% for once a day) is clearly more pronounced.
Figure 25: Habits of watching television
2021/22 results also suggest the pandemic pushed users to prefer ubiquitous content consumption, with a pronounced increase in consumption (19 percentage points) outside the programmed traditional broadcasting. This means that over half of the nationals watch TV programs at a different time than when they are broadcast and less than 2 in 5 people watch them at the time they are broadcast.
More than 2 in 5 people have reported binge watching tv shows with over half nationals in the gulf countries and less than 40% in the other countries.