linear TV

So said Jill McGrath, CEO of TV Audience Measurement (TAM) Ireland, at the RTS event “What Ireland is watching” in late January.

She noted that “69% of all viewing is to linear-TV... that is viewed either live or within seven days of the original broadcast. 

“In 2020, the average person watched 89 hours of linear-TV every month, which is the equivalent of watching the whole of The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix 12 and a half times.” 

Gifted a captive audience, television has seen its ratings soar during the coronavirus crisis. “People are spending much longer in front of TV sets,” Justin Sampson, CEO of ratings body Barb, told an RTS Zoom event in June. During the first nine weeks of the lockdown, people spent an average of five hours seven minutes in front of the box, a third more than during the same period in 2019.