Australian attitudes towards television are changing rapidly as corporations vie for our attention on new platforms, but some things – like free-to-air sports broadcasting – are proving timeless.

The federal government published its annual report on TV habits on Monday, showing the shift to online content is still strong, with 66 per cent of Australians using a streaming service in 2022.

But the way TV is being watched online is shifting, with social media creeping into the picture, particularly for young Australians, and many more people looking for internet-enabled TV sets.

And while commercial free-to-air TV is declining fast, it’s still commanding attention for longer periods, particularly when it comes to Australia’s insatiable demand for live sport broadcasts.

The four graphs below show what the latest data is telling us about these nationwide TV trends.

1. Online is dominant, but it’s changing fast

With two-thirds of Australians saying they’ve used a streaming service in the past seven days, it’s safe to say that online is the TV option of choice after COVID, with the number of people who watched commercial free-to-air in a given week falling 5 percentage points in 2022.

But platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ are increasingly ceding ground to social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.

About 49 per cent of Australians used such “other websites or apps” to watch screen content in a given week, up from 39 per cent in 2021 – making it the fastest-growing medium in the survey.

It points to an ongoing evolution in what screen content actually means, particularly for younger Australians who are growing up consuming short-form video content on platforms like TikTok.

2. Traditional TV still on top

Pay TV (cable) and commercial free-to-air television had the highest average weekly viewing times with 9.51 and 9.08 hours, respectively. That was higher than online streaming at 8.16 hours.

Among the lowest average weekly viewing times were sports apps or websites such as Kayo, and pay-per-view services, which both posted 5.3 hours, the survey found.

3. Generational divide in TV sets

Australians love TV sets – on average, respondents to the survey had two televisions in their household, while 17 per cent had three and 7 per cent had four.

However, younger people are less likely to have a TV in their living rooms, with 5 per cent of those aged 18 to 34 having zero TVs, compared to just 1 per cent of those aged 55 and over.

Those aged 18 to 34 were also more likely to have just one TV set (49 per cent) versus those aged 35 to 54 (34 per cent) and those aged 55 and over (33 per cent).

And the type of television owned is also changing. In 2022, 39 per cent of people bought a new TV to upgrade or keep up with new technology.

The internet was the most important feature among those buying, with 29 per cent of people saying that’s the key reason to buy a new TV, up from 14 per cent.

Sports-loving nation moves on-demand

Sport was the most popular content type in Australia in 2022, with 67 per cent of respondents having watched it in the past six months.

All those viewers make for a lucrative market – one which free-to-air TV still dominates – half of those who watched sport found it on a commercial channel.

However, this proportion plummeted from 67 per cent in 2021, largely due to a big lift in people consuming sport on-demand through the commercial channels.

In other words, while Australians are still watching live sport at prolific rates, we’re increasingly doing so through online platforms rather than the traditional TV viewing experience.