The Second Signal Keeping Television Alive
Last updated: June 26, 2025
Traditional television continues to reach over 90% of UK households, holding its position in a media landscape that no longer follows a single path. For broadcasters, staying in that loop means covering both ends: the Freeview signal remains active in millions of homes, and IP-based streams are built for connected TVs, apps, and global partners.
Dual broadcasting is no longer a technical step forward—it’s a necessary fallback for an industry still chasing its scattered audience.
Rethinking Engagement at Key Moments
Reaching the public is one challenge—keeping them locked in, especially during live content, is another. Most people are used to fast, responsive platforms where real-time response is part of the design, and anything that feels passive tends to lose their attention quickly.
The one-way format no longer sets the pace in a world shaped by interaction, reaction, and constant feedback. To meet those rising expectations, many shows have started copying a tactic long used by raffle sites—timing triggers to land right when the hype peaks, rather than adding extra layers on top.
Viewers take part through trusted websites, anchored to moments that already draw attention. These sites help to create efficient processes for draws, and have run thousands of raffles with a few thousand winners, and millions of pounds in prizes paid out—including cash, luxury travel, and other high-value rewards. (Source: https://realraffle.com)
Coverage Still Depends on Running Both Tracks
A fully digital strategy may appear streamlined, but it rarely delivers true global reach. In the UK, over 17 million homes rely on Freeview, while across Europe and parts of Africa, terrestrial TV remains the primary access point for live content.
Even in regions with high broadband penetration, streaming isn’t consistent—latency, licensing gaps, and hardware differences create friction that traditional broadcast bypasses entirely.
At the same time, global platforms have conditioned audiences to expect on-demand availability across devices. For media groups with international ambitions, a split approach is not a compromise—it’s infrastructure. Running both linear TV and IP-based delivery means live events can land in Nairobi, Manchester, and Mumbai without forcing a single upgrade or login.
It’s the only model that scales without exclusions. Where streaming fills the gaps in flexibility, legacy delivery ensures the signal actually shows up—on time, everywhere, for everyone whose viewing habits haven’t gone fully digital.
Live Sets the Pace When It Counts
On-demand is the norm for background content, but when it comes to real attention—sports, breaking news, major finales—live is another level. In 2024, the Euro qualifying matches pulled in over 8 million UK viewers per game on average, with many watching through standard TV signals, not apps.
ITV and BBC both saw viewership spikes that outpaced their online catch-up numbers by nearly 4 to 1. Streaming might be convenient, but the infrastructure cannot always handle real-time flow, especially when millions hit play at the same second. Most platforms don’t advertise it, but even their digital feeds often rely on old-school signal paths before reaching the screen.
And even though streaming continues to grow, every major network keeps a live backbone because when the moment matters, there’s still no system more reliable or better prepared than scheduled TV.
How Viewing Habits Shape Infrastructure Demands
While broadcasters stay focused on legacy systems to maintain reach, the real shift is playing out underneath—at the level of infrastructure load and consumption patterns. According to Ofcom's 2024 research, the average UK household now streams over 40 hours of online video per week, yet more than 60% of peak-time viewing happens on scheduled channels.
This split reveals a deeper operational challenge. Maintaining low-latency, high-resolution streams across multiple devices is more resource-intensive than traditional transmission.
Data from Akamai and Cisco shows that live event traffic can spike global content delivery networks by 30% within minutes, often leading to buffering or dropped quality in less-connected regions. Broadcasters are quietly retooling their backend logistics to manage these fluctuations without disrupting the core product.
On the other hand, telecom providers are under pressure to upgrade local infrastructure to support simultaneous high-volume streams, with many areas where fibre rollout remains patchy. What emerges is a silent co-dependence between old infrastructure, which serves its purpose, and new systems still grappling with scale under unpredictable spikes.
Regulatory Scrutiny Is Quietly Redrawing the Map
Beneath the delivery models and shifting habits, policymakers are laying down a parallel track. Regulators in the UK and across the EU have begun reevaluating spectrum use, public access standards, and platform accountability in ways that could directly impact how linear and digital television coexist.
Ofcom's 2025 consultation outlined the growing tension between public service obligations and commercial consolidation, particularly as tech firms deepen their control over distribution infrastructure. In Germany and France, new policy drafts are pushing for guaranteed visibility of traditional channels on smart TV interfaces—an echo of the old EPG rules, now rewritten for the app store age.
These regulatory shifts are not uniform, but the direction is clear: public access to linear television is being reframed as a digital rights issue. In parallel, streaming services that operate at scale are being pushed to carry local content, comply with regional quotas, and disclose algorithmic visibility metrics.
As rules tighten and distribution logic fragments, broadcasters are not only adapting to new formats—they are recalibrating how visibility, compliance, and control interact on connected screens.
Advertising Models Are Struggling to Catch Up
Audience fragmentation has forced the advertising world into a reactive stance. Although programmatic video buys now dominate online spend, the metrics behind them rely heavily on proxies—click-throughs, partial views, and inferred engagement—rather than the stable, measured exposure long associated with traditional television.
Nielsen’s latest marketing report shows that more than 71% of brands with annual budgets exceeding $1 billion now view AI-driven personalization as the most influential force shaping their strategy for 2025. Precision is improving, yet consistent brand lift continues to come from campaigns aired on unified platforms, where attention is less divided and delivery more predictable.
As audiences move between formats, many advertisers are prioritizing presence over certainty. That shift creates a growing divide between how broadly a message travels and how deeply it lands.
CTV (Connected TV) ad formats offer a potential middle ground, but adoption is still lopsided. In the US, spending on CTV is projected to surpass $40 billion by 2027, accounting for over five percent of total ad budgets. The UK remains slower to scale, with growth held back by inconsistent measurement standards and ongoing brand safety concerns.
Until verification tools catch up and address the discrepancy between reported impressions and actual viewing time, the ad model will remain tilted, chasing volume without guaranteed attention.
Conclusion
What survives in broadcast is not nostalgia—it’s engineering. Signals that reach millions without a login, infrastructure that absorbs peak demand without blinking, and formats that persist in function when others falter. Streaming stretches the boundaries, but the stability comes from systems designed for endurance, not spectacle.
Television has shifted in shape, not in role. It connects, delivers, and holds attention with precision. The layers around it will keep evolving, but beneath them, the foundation remains—quiet, stable, and already in place.
