Last week, DR published its annual report for the Danes' media development in 2024. And again this year, the report reveals exciting figures about the Danes' media habits, which are certainly not unimportant for you to keep in mind when you need to hit your target group in the right places and distribute your media budget for 2025. We have summarized the three biggest and most significant trends from the report with the marketing glasses on.
While it is a few years ago that streaming took the lead as the Danes’ preferred form of TV distribution, on-demand consumption overtook live consumption for the first time in Q4 2024. Streaming now accounts for 61% of Danes’ TV time, especially driven by the age group 32-64 years.
Public service platforms such as DRTV and TV 2 Play have experienced significant growth in the past year and now account for 60% of Danes’ consumption of live images. The two platforms differ from other services by being the only ones growing in a market that is otherwise relatively stagnant. Global players such as Netflix and YouTube thus experience a slight decrease in viewing time for the second year in a row. This also means that both DRTV and TV 2 Play are in close competition with YouTube for Danes’ time consumption.
YouTube has been part of our media offering for 20 years. Over the two decades, the use of YouTube has changed quite a bit, and where YouTube was previously primarily consumed via small screens, the medium is now challenging the traditional TV platforms with increasing use of TV sets.
A good quarter of the total YouTube viewing in 2024 thus took place on the big screens. In total, almost a third (32%) of Danes watch YouTube monthly via TV, which is more than the monthly user base for both Viaplay, Disney+, Max and Amazon Prime.
The platform’s average session on the TV screen lasts 31 minutes – close to traditional TV services, and looking exclusively at the younger age group, the average TV session is actually longer than the more traditional TV offerings. YouTube is especially gaining ground among men and young adults.
While the consumption of moving images increases with age, it is still the opposite trend we see when we look at social media and games and gaming online. Here, young people between the ages of 12 and 24 spend 38% of the time of their total media use, while the time consumption of the +65 year olds only covers 4% of their total media use. Thus, the younger part of the population spends more time on social media than they do on TV, despite the fact that in 2024 we have seen a decrease in the number of children using social media platforms.
The most popular platforms for this segment of the population are YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram, where short video clips dominate consumption. While YouTube, TikTok and Instagram are primarily used for the purpose of being entertained, Snapchat is mainly used as a channel to keep in touch with friends. If the decline in children’s use of social media continues in 2025, it will be interesting to see whether time consumption and the need for entertainment will instead be shifted to other channels.
When you have to allocate your media budget for 2025, it is important that you consider where your target audience is and spends the most time, as well as which format best suits this particular platform(s).
If you want to reach the younger part of the population, social media is most likely the answer, where short vertical videos often dominate consumption. But don’t forget the horizontal format for the increased consumption of YouTube on the big screens.
If, on the other hand, you want to reach the slightly older part of the population, the TV medium is the obvious place. With the Danes’ increasing consumption of streaming and the increasingly detailed targeting options available on streaming rather than traditional flow TV, channels such as TV 2 Play can be the obvious opportunity to hit your target audience.
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