Chile. In 2020, several television records were broken; both the number of viewers and their daily hours in front of the screen grew. Television consumption reached a historic figure, with 6 hours and 22 minutes per day per person, the highest level recorded by the National Television Council, CNTV.
In this regard, its president, Carolina Cuevas, said that "the increase in audience is a tremendous opportunity for television channels to respond with quality content to those underserved audiences such as the elderly, especially women, who grow in demographic terms and for whom television has been a valuable company during the pandemic."
These figures and others are part of the Yearbook of Television Supply and Consumption 2020, a report that provides a complete overview of the national television sector in terms of programmatic offer, consumption, viewer profile, most watched channels, among other aspects.
According to the report, newscasts, miscellaneous (mornings), talk shows and soap operas account for 72% of the 2020 television offer. In addition, almost a third of the television space (32.8%) is distributed between the different editions of newscasts and mornings.
A remarkable trend is how the news has been spreading over the years. In 2010 they lasted an average of 1 hour and began to have an extension of 2 hours in 2020. To this is added the lengthening of the newscasts in the midday edition, as well as the constant presence of news updates on the day.
"Always, in the face of events of great connotation, such as elections, catastrophes or sporting events, TV consumption increases. In fact, that happened during the social outburst of October 2019. In these situations, television becomes a collective and family meeting point. This shows us that there is a need for television and we could say that, to the extent that the industry adapts and generates quality content to respond to the interests of this new audience, this greater consumption of television could be more durable, "explained the president CNTV.
Historical increase in television consumption
Due to the quarantines during 2020, there was an increase in viewers and their hours in front of the screen. It was evident that some audiences that had gradually abandoned open television in previous years, such as teenagers, returned to this screen, due to the suspension of classes. The consumption of this segment rose by 11%, from 4 hours 14 minutes in 2019 to four hours forty-two minutes in 2020, that is, 27 minutes and 50 seconds more in 2020.
People over 65 years of age – the most loyal audience of the open channels – reached consumption levels of about seven hours a day. Among older people, women watched the most television, with 9 hours and 19 minutes on average per day.
In the case of children, there is also an increase in consumption. Although they are the ones who watch the least open and paid television, 2 hours, 31 minutes, an increase of 13% compared to 2019 is reflected. They mainly watch programs very similar to those seen by their parents or the rest of the family on free-to-air television.
The offer of children's programming for boys and girls – as can be seen in the graph – has steadily declined in recent years, with a 0.6% presence in 2020.
