Cultural consumption in the UK - data and analysis from the six month study - Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre

A summary of the data and blogs published as part of our COVID-19 digital consumer survey tracker

Summary of the project

The PEC partnered with the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to commission AudienceNet to conduct a weekly survey to find out how people were engaging with digital cultural content, such as streaming music or watching theatre online.

The project was initially planned to run for 6 weeks between 9th April to 24th May 2020. This was then extended to a further three waves of surveys to cover July, August and September 2020.

The first part of the survey, referred to as waves 1 to 6, was carried out over six weeks from April to May, when the UK was in a full national lockdown. The national lockdown ended on July the 4th, although local lockdown restrictions remained in some places, such as Leicester. There were then three further waves of the study, referred to as 7-9, carried out in July, August and September, during which some parts of the UK were in local lockdowns at various points.

All the reports sorted by date

The final summary and insights report

Digital Culture: Consumption in Lockdown (August 2020)

The reports from every week of the survey:

Wave 1 (2nd -12th April)
Wave 2 (13th – 19th April)
Wave 3 (20th – 26th April)
Wave 4 (27th April – 3rd May)
Wave 5 (4th – 10th May)
Wave 6 (11th -17th May))
Wave 7 (6th – 12th July)
Wave 8 (3rd – 9th August)
Wave 9 (14th- 20th September)

Key findings

Long term trends, such as the decline in downloading in favour of streaming content, were accelerated.
People in local lockdown areas watched more television and films than those in less restricted areas.
The end of lockdown saw a considerable uptick in physical purchases of music and video games, indicating that the retail experience is still important to many people.
The relaxing of lockdown measures hasn’t had a noticeable effect on people’s reported wellbeing.
There was an increase in those who are working inside the home and those who say they are working from home more.