Almost a third of UK adults feel quality of TV has got worse

Research from Ofcom has found that opinions among UK adults on the quality of television programming have remained unchanged since 2014.



The UK TV regulator’s annual UK Audience Attitudes Towards Broadcast Media report explores UK adults’ attitudes and opinions towards television and radio broadcasting, and related areas such as programme standards, advertising and regulation. It found that in 2015 half of viewers (50%) feel that the quality of programming has stayed about the same but that almost a third (30%) felt that programming quality had worsened in 2015.

The main reasons for the drop in quality were: more repeats, a lack of variety and an overall lack of quality. A minority of adults (17%) felt that programme quality had improved in 2015. Levels of personal offence resulting from seeing something on television, remained relatively low, at a fifth of adults.

The top three types of content that were most likely to cause offence to viewers were: sexual content (38%), violence (37%) and bad language (37%). Among those offended, the most common reaction towards the offensive material was to switch over to a different channel (50%).

Ofcom also found that opinions around the amount of offensive content acceptable to viewers have changed over recent years, with more adults considering there to be acceptable levels of sexual content, violence and bad language on TV.