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Average Briton spends almost 10 years of their life watching TV, research finds

The poll of 2,000 UK adults found that the average Briton views 27 hours of television per week: Getty Creative
The poll of 2,000 UK adults found that the average Briton views 27 hours of television per week: Getty Creative

The average Briton spends almost 10 years of their life watching TV, according a new poll.

A survey of 2,000 UK adults found that respondents watched around 27 hours’ worth of television in a typical week.

In an average month, we will sit down to watch 13 different TV series, with British dramas, US dramas and documentaries the most popular.

However, the nation’s favourite show of all-time is the classic sitcom, Only Fools and Horses.

First aired in 1981, the show continues to endure today and beat Game of Thrones to top spot.

The research also found we typically own a TV for eight years before buying a new one.

"We were shocked to discover that we typically watch almost 10 years of their life watching TV – that’s almost one eighth of the average UK lifetime," said a spokesman for PerfectHome which commissioned the research.

The battle for the UK’s favourite soap opera – which has historically been between Coronation Street and EastEnders saw the long running Manchester show take third place, in the favourite TV show list, 10 places above its Walthamstow rival.

Both were behind Star Trek and The Walking Dead.

The research also found the traditional TV box is still very much the preferred way to watch television, with 90 per cent watching their favourite TV shows and films using this method.

More than one fifth watch on their laptop device, 21 per cent use a tablet and 16 per cent prefer to use their mobile phones.

And despite the rise in popularity of catch-up TV and streaming services, 43 per cent still prefer to watch TV live.

During a typical year, participants in the study spent a total of 718 hours watching live TV – that equates to just under five years over the course of their lifetime.

They also spend 387 hours watching catch-up TV in an average year, or two years and eight months in total during their lives.

Among those polled, the main reasons for avoiding live television are annoying adverts (60 per cent), and having to watch TV at a specific time (59 per cent).

The research also found 304 hours is spent watching streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video during in a typical year.

This works out to be more than two years in total during the average adult’s lifetime.

The research also found Netflix is the most popular streaming service, with around one third of those polled using this provid

In comparison just under one third use BBC iPlayer, one fifth use Amazon Prime.

“While it is not surprising that streaming services have enjoyed a boom in popularity in recent years, we were surprised to see that live TV was still our pollsters preferred way to watch their favourite shows," a spokesman for PerfectHome said.