A new report shows that video viewing habits are shifting rapidly, creating a significant data challenge for enterprise technology leaders.
For the first time, apps now account for the majority of broadcaster television viewing in the UK, representing 52.7% of total consumption versus 48.3% for traditional linear broadcast. Linear share has declined sharply from 52.9% a year earlier and 61.2% in 2023. The audience split, outlined in the Q2 2025 TiVo Video Trends Report, affects more than media businesses—it directly impacts any organisation that relies on customer data to guide strategy and marketing.
This shift occurs amid changing TV licence models, new regulatory pressures, and an ongoing move away from digital terrestrial television (DTT). As consumer endpoints fragment, the data needed to build a complete picture of the customer is scattered across many closed platforms, challenging existing data architectures.
A deeply fragmented app world
The transition from linear to digital is no longer the main problem; the ecosystem has already fragmented. The core challenge is operating within a highly divided environment where viewer attention and data are split across many services.
According to the report, UK viewers use an average of slightly more than seven different video services, up from 6.48 the previous year. Nearly two-thirds (64.2%) of viewers use more than one app during a typical viewing session, making multi-app behaviour the norm rather than the exception.
That behaviour fragments customer data. Video consumption patterns—valuable indicators of interests and intent—are dispersed across platforms such as BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Pluto TV, and YouTube. The splintering also creates friction for viewers: the report highlights a persistent “discovery dilemma,” with 48.6% of respondents saying they find it annoying to browse multiple apps to find something to watch.
“As streaming options multiply, the challenge for viewers isn’t access to content, it’s finding what to watch easily,” said Stéphane David, Head of Content Partnerships & Business Development, EMEA at TiVo. “Our UK research shows audiences are increasingly frustrated with jumping between apps. They’re asking for simplicity.”
Ad-tech, churn, and data infrastructure
While audiences have fragmented, the landscape is also creating fresh opportunities for marketing technology. The report notes a rapid rise in free, ad-supported AVOD/FAST services: 52.5% of UK viewers now use these offerings, a 10% increase year on year.
Cost pressures are driving more consumers toward ad-supported tiers. In the subscription (SVOD) market, nearly half of subscribers now choose ad-supported plans, up from 37% in 2024. Overall, 74.6% of UK consumers say they are at least ad-tolerant, opening new possibilities for addressable advertising.
This new ad inventory is typically bought programmatically through ad-tech platforms, which must connect to an organisation’s data infrastructure. For marketing teams, campaigns now require targeting audiences across a dozen apps, ingesting real-time bidding signals, matching them to customer profiles, and delivering personalised creative at scale.
Retention has become a core data function. The report finds 40.6% of viewers say they are likely to cancel an SVOD subscription within six months; 24.5% subscribe only to watch a single programme. Predicting churn and recommending relevant content to retain subscribers is therefore a priority for data platforms.
The trend also enables new commerce flows: almost half of UK consumers (49.6%) are open to purchasing directly from the TV screen. That requires close integration between ad-tech, e-commerce systems, and data warehouses to support seamless, measurable transactions.
The data aggregation challenge amid changing video consumption habits
Smart TV ownership has risen to 80.9%, but data from the living-room screen is often siloed from mobile and web data. Without strong identity resolution—frequently implemented using privacy-preserving clean rooms—creating a unified customer view is extremely difficult.
Relevance remains essential. Although algorithmic recommendations are improving, word of mouth is still the leading discovery method, cited by 48.9% of respondents. That indicates technical recommendations alone are not enough; enterprises must also ingest and analyse unstructured social and sentiment signals to capture the full discovery picture.
For technology leaders, the TiVo findings are a microcosm of a wider consumer data challenge. The fact that 52.7% of viewing now occurs in apps highlights a broader data aggregation problem: disparate platforms, fractured identities, and distributed signals make it hard to assemble actionable customer profiles.
The CIO’s remit has expanded—data pipeline performance and integration now affect advertising efficiency and customer retention. Equally, Chief Data and Analytics Officers must shift focus from managing separate streams to mastering aggregation, identity resolution, and predictive analytics.
Addressing the “frustrating” discovery dilemma and mitigating the 40.6% churn risk are fundamentally data problems. Solving them will unlock business value in an environment where viewing behaviour and monetisation models are rapidly evolving.
See also: SK Telecom: Why the AI infrastructure bottleneck matters
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